PipeLineNews Archives: March 2010

March 30, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Once again taking the lead against the Obama administration's harmful disregard of the effect its GITMO release policy is having, today Frank Wolf [R-VA] and Rep. Sue Myrick [R-NC] asked team Obama to stop its policy of releasing GITMO detainees to Afghanistan.

The action follows credible reports that a detainee released in December already has returned to the jihad. As a consequence to similar demands by GOP Congressmen, the administration in January halted sending detainees back to Yemen after it became clear that the failed Christmas Day bomber developed links to al-Qaeda there.

Myrick and Wolf also asked to be provided with an updated, unclassified version of the recidivism rate of Guantanamo Bay detainees - it's been reported that is it now over 20 percent.

As part of Congressman Wolf and Myrick's statement they said, "we must learn from our past mistakes and prevent additional detainees from rejoining the fight against our armed forces and aid workers in Afghanistan,"

Wolf is the ranking minority memeber on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department and Myrick is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Below, from Wolf and Myrick's open letter to president Obama:

"Dear Mr. President...We are deeply concerned about recent reports that Abdul Hafiz, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee released by the Obama Administration to Afghanistan on December 19, 2009, has already returned to terrorist activities with the Taliban. As you may know, we ardently opposed the decision to transfer Hafiz and the other detainees to Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia last December.

Hafiz was held in Guantanamo for more than six years as "a suspect in the murder of an International Red Cross worker in Afghanistan," according to multiple Department of Defense [DOD] documents. He was captured and transferred to Guantanamo Bay following the 2003 kidnap and murder of Ricardo Munguia, a Salvadoran aid worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross and first aid worker murdered in Afghanistan following the arrival of coalition forces.

Given the reported rise in detainee recidivism -- from 13 percent to more than 20 percent over the last year alone -- it is troubling that this administration chose to ignore these findings and continues to suppress Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] reports on recidivism from the American people. We must learn from past mistakes and prevent additional detainees from rejoining the fight against our armed forces and aid workers in Afghanistan. As such, we urge the administration to release an unclassified version of the updated DIA recidivism report to the American people.

We strongly support your decision to cease the release of detainees to Yemen and urge you to extend this policy to Afghanistan and other unstable countries. It is wholly inappropriate to release terrorist detainees to the battlefield in Afghanistan while we have U.S. troops on the ground fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda."

Timing on Hutaree Raid Troubling

Is this the long anticipated beginning of Obama stifling "right wing" dissent?

March 29, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In this administration nothing happens by accident, at least at the public relations level and DOJ's widely reported raid this last weekend on a group with extremely limited previous public visibility [the Hutaree, a tiny Michigan based group] might well be similarly tainted.

The defendants, David Brian Stone, David Brian Stone Jr., Joshua Matthew Stone, Tina Mae Stone, Joshua John Clough, Michael David Meeks, Thomas William Piatek, Kristopher T. Sickes and Jacob J. Ward, were variously named in a previously sealed indictment go here, Federal indictment Hutaree on 5 counts, including seditious conspiracy [USC 2384], attempt to use weapons of mass destruction [USC 2332], teaching and/or demonstrating the use of explosive devices [USC 842(p)(2)] and two counts of carrying or possessing a weapon during commission of a crime of violence [USC 924 (c)(1)].

Though the charges against this group might well turn out to be sustainable and the threat they posed great and imminent, the mere fact of the timing of this raid is troubling, coming in the immediate wake of a sustained attempt by Democrat politicians to characterize opponents of the Obama agenda as violent right-wing Christian racists, to the extent of having Democrat politicians charge - absent any proof - that they have been victimized - spat upon, subjected to the "n" word and other indignities - by the Tea Partiers [it goes without saying that Dem stunts such as Nancy Pelosi's grand march, gavel in hand, past protesters last week at the Capital were intended to provoke responses which could then be amplified by the MSM].

Helping set the scene, unofficial WH spokes-tard Frank Rich [a former drama critic] chimed in conspiratorially and in hushed tones, writing in the NY Times, "...to find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964...If Obama's first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House - topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman - would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It's not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver - none of them major Democratic players in the health care push - received a major share of last weekend's abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan 'Take our country back!,' these are the people they want to take the country back from."

Adding fuel to this phony cellophane fire another of the usual suspects, the race whores at Southern Poverty Law Center issued [see, Rage on the Right, http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/spring/rage-on-the-right] a "report" which quoted Chip Berlet [a lefty whack job] as saying, "We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history...We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety..."

In a March 24 interview with Boston Public Radio WBUR [see, When Right-Wing Extremism Moves Mainstream, http://www.wbur.org/npr/124906766] SPLC's "director of publications and information," Mark Potok stated as if on cue, "I think it's very clear that you see ideas coming out of all kinds of sectors of the radical right, from the immigrant radical right, from the so-called Patriot groups, the militias and so on - and you see it spreading right across the landscape at some of these Tea Party events...I think it's worth saying that much of this is aided and abetted by ostensibly mainstream politicians and media members...I think a lot of these ideas start on the radical right, but they are also being flogged endlessly by Republican officials...Even those who are sort of considered [to be] responsible Republicans have completely abstained from any kind of criticism of this talk. So even way back when, when Sarah Palin was talking about Obama setting up death panels and so on - what we heard was a deafening silence from the mainstream of the Republican Party." [source, http://www.wbur.org/npr/124906766]As Discover the Networks points out about SPLC, "In 1996, USA Today called SPLC, with its $68 million in assets, "the nation's richest civil rights organization." By the end of fiscal year 2003, SPLC's endowment totaled $120.6 million. Morris Dees raised eyebrows in the 1990s when he told an interviewer, "I learned everything I know about hustling from the Baptist Church. Spending Sundays on those hard benches listening to the preacher pitch salvation - why, it was like getting a Ph.D. in selling." [source, http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/splcworldview.html]

Demonstrative of the use to which the Hutaree indictment and the general rabble-rousing around spurious allegations can be put, are the stealth jihadists at the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR. named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the United States largest Hamas terror prosecution, U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation, et al.], "Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations of Michigan, made an announcement Sunday during the group's 10th anniversary banquet about receiving a call from a network journalist about the alleged threat against Muslims..." [source, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011468492_militia29.html]

For the record regarding this allegation, Gina Belaya, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutors' office in Detroit, when contacted this afternoon by PipeLineNews.org, categorically denied any knowledge that the Hutaree group had targeted Muslims, stating that in the DOJ's opinion, "the government," was Hutaree's perceived enemy.

In the sphere of DC politics and ratcheting up the gambit more than a bit, Henry Waxman [chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee] acting as grand inquisitor, last week demanded that AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, and Deere & Co. justify their claims about the "costs the companies plan to book related to the new health-care law," clearly delineating a hard-line, zero tolerance policy regarding criticism of team Obama.

Given the foregoing, it seems that this administration and its allies are purposely targeting its critics in a manner which it hopes will demean them as fringe players, thus stoking the poisonous whisper campaign that the Tea Party movement and other critics of Obama's policies represent a fundamental and violent threat to the United States.

Thus we have been given a glimpse into a brave new world in modern day American politics, one in which dissent becomes conflated with violence at the topmost levels of government. If the first 14 months of this administration seemed a challenge for the conservative majority, Obama's intolerance of any level of criticism will make the remainder of the term memorable on several fronts.

March 29, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In the last few days I have critiqued two ads, one on TV and one on the internet,promoting elements of the universal health care plan.

AD 1: [I am paraphrasing] DEMOCRATS, VICTIMIZED FOR DEFENDING THE POOR AND NEEDY. This could well be the title of this ad.

This spot positions the Democrats in Congress as victims of those opposing the recently passed health care plan. The ad claims that Democrats have received threats, nasty phone calls, etc. It urges the reader to please, quickly send a $5.00 donation to the following address to help overcome this unpleasantness and help inform the people of the good work to be done by The Plan, yadda...yadda...

In truth the phone calls, if any, are probably from constituents who have a right to oppose a vote cast by their legislator and the so-called threats are, mostlikely, vows to defeat the legislator at the next election.

This is exactly the routine followed by Planned Parenthood. They positionthemselves as victims at the mercy of a well-funded but vicious pro-lifecommunity which is spreading false information about the work of the abortion provider. PP spends a fortune [of our tax dollars] sending out fund raisingletters urging people to send money to aid in their "education" program. Theyclaim to have been victimized by pro-lifers and have no other way to respondbut through your urgently needed donations....yadda...yadda...yadda...

You are supposed to feel sorry for these poor, brave defenders of social justice who need your protection.

AD 2. DIGITIZING MEDICAL RECORDS.This television advertisement shows a man sitting on an examining table in a doctor?s office. The doctor wonders, out loud, if the patient has ever been checked for [fill in the blank]. The patient shrugs his shoulders and suddenly the scene changes to include a large audience. Members of the audience start jumping up proclaiming that the patient has had this any number of tests. Another voice-over begins to list the supposed advantages of digital medical record keeping and sharing.

This is the promotion of digitizing everyone's medical records and assigning patients, without their approval or knowledge apparently, to a Medical Home [a new legislatively created entity in which a patient's medical care becomes subject to influences far outside the doctor patient relationship, a topic I've written about this in the last legislative alert].

Now, this may be, to some extent, a good idea. Kaiser has this sort of organized record keeping. Instead of spending time looking through poorly written paper medical records, the doctor just has to press a button and up pops the info on whatever test or medication they ask for. Any Kaiser doctor or nurse with privileges or on a needs basis, using the proper pass code can look up yourrecord.

Years ago I worked for a County Child Protective Services Agency.

Occasionally we would learn of some client gaming all the county serviceswithout each department knowing about the other. We would talk about howgreat it would be if we could somehow automatically share the information inorder to find out if client A is getting the same service or payment from severalagencies.

However, there is a down-side to this. Just how far afield would Obama?sAdministration wish to share your information? Does your employer or yourchild?s teacher need to know about your bladder infections, your nasal drip,your appendectomy?

There have been 5 bills so far in the 2009-10 California legislative sessionauthorizing Medical Homes for just about everyone. Two failed, one wasenacted, one was gutted and replaced with housing language and three areawaiting hearings.

This would have established a Medi-Cal Managed Care Pilot Program forRiverside and San Bernardino counties with access to a medical home.By the way, there is no definition of a Medical Home in California law.apparently, because SB 966,Welfare and Institutions: Medi-Cal, by Sen. ElaineAlquist, mandates development of a definition to coincide with the 2008Physician Practice Connections-Patient-Centered Medical Home standards andGuidelines established by the National committee for Quality Assurance.So, these legislators are authoring bills and they don't even have a workingdefinition of what constitutes a medical home.

AB 6 d, Noreen Evans, Medi-Cal, was chaptered on 7/28/2009.Provides, in order to maximize federal claiming under the Medi-Cal Hospital/Uninsured Care Demonstration Project, that the Department of Health CareServices have broad discretion to claim federal reimbursement. Authorizes theseeking of all available funding including under the American Recovery andReinvestment Act. Requires an application for a project federal waiver.Requires an implementation plan for such waiver. Requires the formation of arelated stakeholder committee.

Defines a patient-centered medical home [PCMH] as an approach to providing health care that originates in a primary care setting and fosters partnerships among the patient and health professionals to promote coordinated care, ensure quality and access to care, and to improve health. This bill will create a partnership agreement between the Health Care Professional [notice it never says doctor] and the patient to provide access to "high Quality, comprehensive care."

I advise caution when faced with the word "comprehensive." That is a favoriteword of Planned Parenthood?s and it means family planning and abortion. Thistime it will include obtaining the patient?s consent to agree to a set plan ofpreventive measures to which the patient will be pressured to adhere.

This bill appears to have ties to a federal bill, S. 1303, Women?s Medical Home Demonstration Act by Robert Menendez, [D-NJ]. This bill consigns all women to a Women?s Medical Home for the delivery of health care which does include family planning, venereal diseases and abortions.

If this passes you could be assigned to the same medical home as the townhooker and you will probably be paying, with your taxes, for her medical care - another area of equality and diversity never mentioned in the pro-Obamahealth care press.

Turkey on the Brink

March 29, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The current Turkish government led by prime minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan seeks to expand its influence through Turks living abroad. An important conference was recently held in Istanbul where 15,00 people from Turkish descent from several European countries listened to Erdogan and other speakers. All expenses were paid by the Turkish government. Erdogan repeated his controversial 2008 statement: 'Assimilation is a crime against humanity.' Another speaker went even further saying: 'We need to innoculate European culture with Turkish culture.'

The language in the invitations already suggested the attitude of the Turkish government towards Turkish-German politicians. Ankara perceives them as being its own. Invitations sent in the name of Turkish Labor Minister Farak Celik to German Bundestag members were addressed as 'my esteemed members of parliament' and Erdogan was referred to as 'our prime minister.'

Are we going to return to the times of the Islamic Ottoman Empire which sought to conquer the whole of Europe in the 16th and 17th century but was eventually stopped at the gates of Vienna? It was early November 2008 that Erdogan addressed a large crowd of enthousiastic followers in the German city of Cologne. His message to them could be summarized as follows: 'You may live in Germany, but you are Turks – and I am your prime minister.'

What Erdogan and his friends basically want is to expand Turkish cultural and religious influence through the Turkish immigrant community abroad. 'Turks living abroad should take the citizenship of their new home country – not, however, with the intention of becoming an integrated part of society, but so they can become politically active,' Erdogan was quoted by 'Spiegelonline.'

As Turkish and Moroccan immigrants possess dual citizenship their loyalty can be easily exploited by the Turkish or Moroccan state. Moroccan and Turkish immigrants in Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, France or Spain who play an important social or political role have been approached by state officials from their home country with a view to persuading them to take into consideration or even serve the interests of the Turkish or Moroccan state.

March 26, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Paraguay, of all South American countries is in the news, with Fox News carrying a story detailing the substantial ties between Iran's proxy army Hezbollah and Paraguay.

Wedged between the twin giants Brazil and Argentina the country would seem an unlikely candidate for international intrigue, but its very anonymity is apparently exactly what Hezbollah sought when it first established a beachhead there.

In a 2004 study by the ADL - Anti-Defamation League [see, http://www.adl.org/terror/hezbollah_print.asp Hezbollah's International Reach] the organization documents the deep ties Hezbollah has established throughout South America.

"Hezbollah is widely considered to have an established presence in the lawless, corrupt, drug-ridden triple border region of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Hezbollah uses the area as a key locale for raising and laundering money, drug trafficking, weapons and people smuggling and document and currency fraud. It has been alleged that Hezbollah, Hamas and AI Qaeda also maintain terrorist training camps in the triborder region but the evidence to date is inconclusive.

Fundraising for Hezbollah is done through legitimate businesses, charities and shake-downs. U.S. officials believe that at least $1 00 million is funneled through the tri-border region each year, with Hezbollah receiving a large share of the funds.

The recent trial in Argentina for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community building in Buenos Aires revealed an extensive Hezbollah operational presence in South America."

More concise yet, a study done by the U.S. Treasury Department and published in late 2006 [source, http://paraguay.usembassy.gov/hizballah_fundraising_network_in_the_triple_frontier2.html Hizballah Fundraising Network in the Triple Frontier, U.S. Treasury Department Office of Public Affairs] which specifically identifies active members of the terrorist organization.

"Frontier of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated nine individuals and two entities that have provided financial and logistical support to the Hizballah terrorist organization. The designees are located in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay and have provided financial and other services for Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) Assad Ahmad Barakat, who was previously designated in June 2004 for his support to Hizballah leadership.

"Assad Ahmad Barakat's network in the Tri-Border Area is a major financial artery to Hizballah in Lebanon," said Adam Szubin, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). "Today's action aims to disrupt this channel and to further unravel Barakat's financial network."

This designation was taken pursuant to Executive Order 13224, which is aimed at shutting down the financial flows supporting terrorism. Designations prohibit transactions or dealings between U.S. persons and the named individuals and entities and also freeze any assets they may have under U.S jurisdiction.

Identifying Information

Muhammad Yusif Abdallah

Muhammad Yusif Abdallah is a senior Hizballah leader in the TBA and an important contributor of funds to Hizballah, notably hosting a fundraiser for the terrorist group in the TBA in 2004. Abdallah has personally carried money for Hizballah, serving as a courier of Hizballah funds from the TBA to Lebanon. He has traveled to Lebanon to maintain connections to the Hizballah hierarchy and has met with members of Hizballah's security division. Likewise, Abdallah has also received money from Hizballah to support the Hizballah network in the TBA.

Abdallah is an owner and manager of the Galeria Page building in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, a shopping center with several businesses owned by Hizballah members. He reportedly pays a percentage of his income to Hizballah based on profits he receives from Galeria Page. In addition to his Hizballah-related activities, Abdallah has also been involved in the import of contraband electronics, passport falsification, credit card fraud, and trafficking counterfeit U.S. dollars.

Hamzi Ahmad Barakat

Hamzi Ahmad Barakat is a member of Hizballah in the TBA suspected of trafficking in narcotics, counterfeit U.S. dollars, arms, and explosives. He has owned and held the position of general manager of Casa Hamze, a store in the Galeria Page shopping center that has employed Hizballah members and has served as a source of funding for Hizballah. Hamzi Ahmad Barakat and SDGT Assad Ahmad Barakat are brothers and have been partners at Casa Hamze.

Hatim Ahmad Barakat

Information passed from the Barakat network to Hizballah in Lebanon goes mainly through two individuals: SDGT Assad Ahmad Barakat and his brother Hatim Ahmad Barakat. Hatim Ahmad Barakat has traveled to Chile to collect funds intended for Hizballah, and as of early 2003, he was reported to be a significant shareholder in at least two businesses in Iquique, Chile believed to generate funds in support of Hizballah. Hatim Ahmad Barakat traveled frequently to Iquique, Chile and is possibly managing or assisting a group of suspected Hizballah members. Hatim Ahmad Barakat reportedly oversees the sending of funds from Iquique to Hizballah in Lebanon.

Hatim Ahmad Barakat has maintained business relationships with senior Hizballah leaders in the TBA and is deeply involved in Assad Ahmad Barakat's business affairs, having co-owned several companies with him. Hatim Ahmad Barakat co-owned SDGT Casa Apollo with brothers Assad and Hamzi Ahmad Barakat.

Muhammad Fayez Barakat

Muhammad Fayez Barakat is responsible for the Barakat network's finances in the TBA, and in this capacity he arranges the transfer of money from the TBA to the Middle East. As recently as July 2006, Muhammad Fayez Barakat collected money on behalf of Hizballah in the TBA, hosting fundraisers for Hizballah in the region and sending money to the terrorist group in Lebanon. Muhammad Fayez Barakat has also provided financial assistance to his cousin, SDGT Assad Ahmad Barakat. Muhammad Tarabain ChamasMuhammad Tarabain Chamas is a member of Hizballah in the TBA, specifically Hizballah's counterintelligence element in the TBA and provides Hizballah with security information on residents there. Muhammad Tarabain Chamas is the private secretary for senior TBA Hizballah leader Muhammad Yusif Abdallah and the principal administrator of the Galeria Page building in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. In addition to maintaining close contacts with TBA Hizballah members, Muhammad Tarabain Chamas maintains daily contact with Hizballah members in Lebanon and Iran and has transported funds from Hizballah members in the TBA to Hizballah in Lebanon.

Saleh Mahmoud Fayad

Saleh Mahmoud Fayad has served as a counterintelligence operative for Hizballah in the TBA, and as of late July 2006, collected money on behalf of Hizballah in the TBA. In 2000, Saleh Mahmoud Fayad reportedly traveled to Lebanon and Iran and met with senior Hizballah leadership.

Sobhi Mahmoud Fayad

Sobhi Mahmoud Fayad has been a senior TBA Hizballah official who served as a liaison between the Iranian embassy and the Hizballah community in the TBA. He has also been a professional Hizballah operative who has traveled to Lebanon and Iran to meet with Hizballah leaders. Fayad received military training in Lebanon and Iran and was involved in illicit activities involving drugs and counterfeit U.S. dollars. Sobhi Mahmoud Fayad has also served as Assad Ahmad Barakat's executive assistant.

Sobhi Mahmoud Fayad was sentenced to a six and a half year prison sentence in Paraguay for tax evasion. During his trial in 2002, the counterterrorism unit of the Paraguayan National Police described Sobhi Mahmoud Fayad's money transfers to a Hizballah-controlled charity in Lebanon.

Ali Muhammad Kazan

According to information available to the U.S. Government, Ali Muhammad Kazan possibly succeeded Assad Ahmad Barakat as the leader in the political structure of Hizballah in the TBA. He also reportedly served as a commanding member of counterintelligence for Hizballah in the TBA. As of August 2006, Ali Muhammad Kazan helped raise more that $500,000 for Hizballah from Lebanese businessmen in the TBA. Since 2001, he traveled frequently to Lebanon to receive guidance and instructions from Hizballah leaders, including a message from Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. Ali Muhammad Kazan also maintained close commercial ties to SDGT Assad Ahmad Barakat.

Farouk Omairi

Farouk Omairi is a principal member of the Hizballah community in the TBA and served as a coordinator for Hizballah members in the region. Farouk Omairi has been a key figure in the procurement of false Brazilian and Paraguayan documentation and has assisted individuals in the TBA with obtaining Brazilian citizenship illegally through the submission of false documentation. Farouk Omairi was also involved in narco-trafficking operations between South America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Casa Hamze

Casa Hamze is an electronics company located at the Galeria Page shopping center in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. The store is owned by Hizballah member Hamzi Ahmad Barakat and has employed Hizballah members in the TBA. Money was reportedly sent from Casa Hamze to Hizballah.

Galeria Page

Galeria Page, a shopping center in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, serves as a source of fundraising for Hizballah in the TBA and is locally considered the central headquarters for Hizballah members in the TBA. Galeria Page is managed and owned by TBA Hizballah members, including members of the Barakat network. Local Hizballah members operate businesses within Galeria Page and funds generated from these businesses support Hizballah. Muhammad Yusif Abdallah, a manager of Galeria Page, paid a regular quota to Hizballah based on profits he received from Galeria Page. Shops in the building have also been involved in illicit activity, including the sale of counterfeit U.S. dollars.

March 26, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - South Korean news agency Yonhap is reporting details of a major naval clash between North and South Korea. [see, http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/South-Korean-Ship-Sinks-North-Suspected-89273647.html]

The incident took place at approximately 9:30 am local time, the 1,500 ton South Korean vessel [possible a guided missile frigate] was sunk, possibly due to a torpedo strike, the assumed origin being a North Korean naval warship.

Tensions in the contested Yellow Sea area where the suspected attack took place have been heightened recently due to North Korean anger over joint U.S.-South Korean naval exercises.

Cardinal Roger Mahony's Baloney

By WILLIAM MAYER

March 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A visit to LA Cardinal Roger Mahoney's blog [see, http://cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot.com] should be a startling revelation for a traditional Catholic, or American for that matter. Unfortunately what should be surprising isn't - not by a long shot. Given the rapid and downward turn of events since Obama's bait-and-switch electoral victory 16 months ago, nothing in the way of iconoclastic change should startle thoughtful observers. Yet despite this fact, the dawn of every day brings with it such unprecedented breaks with the past that one might feel in need of a road map to determine at what juncture the wrong turn was made.

That point being beyond the intent of this writing, allow us to consider Cardinal Mahony's political blogging which contains this post from March 21:

"Health care reform passed on Sunday night, and brought millions of people out of the shadows of living without health care coverage. We have reached out to them precisely to include them fully into American life and protections. Now we need to do the same thing with our millions of immigrants who are living in the shadows of our society but without protections and guarantees--because they do not yet possess legal status. We need to devote ourselves to bring about a comprehensive bill which will bring them into full participation in the life of our country."

In the space of less than 100 words the Cardinal tosses overboard in a mind-bendingly cavalier manner, the single most important tenet underlying Judaism, Christianity and Western Civilization, that being the idea of free choice.

Allow me to explain...briefly...

Saint Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the Church's most brilliant intellectual - and other theologians, have written extensively on the subject, often referring to Deuteronomy 30:19 or similar texts, "...I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed..." [American Standard translation]

"It is written (Sirach 15:14) God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel...That is of his free-will. I answer that, Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain. In order to make this evident, we must observe that some things act without judgment; as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things which lack knowledge. And some act from judgment, but not a free judgment; as brute animals. For the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned, from a natural and not a free judgment, because it judges, not from reason, but from natural instinct. And the same thing is to be said of any judgment of brute animals. But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct, but from some act of comparison in the reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power of being inclined to various things. For reason in contingent matters may follow opposite courses, as we see in dialectic syllogisms and rhetorical arguments. Now particular operations are contingent, and therefore in such matters the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determinate to one. And forasmuch as man is rational is it necessary that man have a free-will... " 1.[source, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas Second and Revised Edition, 1920]

The power of this line of thought is revelatory and undeniable; unless man is created free to choose both rightly and wrongly, he can't be held morally responsible for his actions.

This is the kernel upon which the Western experience has been built, reflective of a continuous striving to maximize conditions so that the exercise of this freedom is unfettered, set against the similarly Biblically derived admonition that one must choose rightly.

The ideals that serve this notion are personal freedom and liberty, especially as they pertain to the constantly impinging force of governance.

In our system, the belief has been that democratic rule should be based upon guaranteeing and fostering this process.

As John Locke, often cited as the Founder's single most influential source of philosophy [having provided the ethical basis for the social contract] on establishing the American model wrote, "The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

So the maximization of that which extends and preserves freedom and liberty should be the goal of all who live in the West, especially those whose privilege it is to minister to the citizenry.

Following from this, if this process of maximization is good, then its opposite, diminution of freedom and liberty - outside the maintenance of the structure which allows such choice, i.e. the laws under which we operate - is not morally defensible either from the standpoint of Judeo-Christian theology or its secular embodiment, Western political philosophy.

Let us now examine Cardinal Mahony's stand on what has rightly come to be known as Obamacare in light of the foregoing [we will ignore Mahony and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' weasel word opposition to federally funded abortions in deference to the larger concern here].

Though its proponents deny the characterization, Obamacare socializes America's health industry - with use of the word socialism properly noted, placing one-sixth of the economy - and every U.S. citizen - under strict government control.

The degree of control here is near total, with federal bureaucrats being given the power to force their will upon decisions traditionally made by and between doctors and their patients.

The mechanism whereby this will be enforced is draconian. This legislation creates approximately 100 boards, agencies, programs and other control devices [final number to be determined by unelected bureaucrats, behind closed doors and hidden in perhaps 100,000 pages of new health regulations yet to be written] ultimately enforced by an army of 16,000 new IRS agents whose duty it will be to force compliance, under the ultimate threat of prison.

This is a level of intrusion completely alien to both the Christian as well as the American tradition.

This broadside was understood, until fairly recently as being the Church's response to socialism which had become a major topic of concern upon the publishing in 1848 of Marx's The Communist Manifesto and later, in 1867, of the first volume of the philosopher's further assault on capitalism, Das Kapital.

In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo established the Church's broad based theological opposition to socialism and with it, the sanctity of private property.

"...To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies...Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life... The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home... Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property..."

In the 120 years subsequent to this first declaration by the Church, leftist philosophers and errant theologians have put forth the proposition - based upon a topsy-turvy Biblical revisionism - that Jesus was a progressive Democrat - a socialist - bent upon income and property redistribution and societal leveling.

In his support of Obamacare, albeit his above noted wink-wink-nod-nod opposition to Obamabortions [they will of course be forced by the courts as even a dull attorney would surmise, likely as the result of 14th Amendment challenge, assuming the legislation itself stands its own, soon to be withering, judicial review] Cardinal Mahony errs greatly because no one has the right to their private property unless they can control it and the most important private property is one's body, which has been given to each of us, for safekeeping until we are called to final account.

It is this control of one's body through what were heretofore private decisions made by individuals in conjunction with their physicians that Obamacare obliterates.

Cardinal Mahony should be ashamed for either not understanding this, or worse, understanding and rejecting it in pursuit of the collectivist's holy grail.

On to the Cardinal's immigration stand...

In the same sense that the Hippocratic oath compels physicians to first do no harm, we as a nation - as a faith based people, Christians and Jews - are obligated, morally, philosophically, theologically and legally to follow the law [yes of course, the laws must be just, the topic for another essay].

This societally agreed upon mandate is what causes the United States to be a nation of laws which theoretically apply equally to all, hence our seminal document, the Constitution.

On the immigration question Cardinal Mahony's [we will leave aside at this juncture, the position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is nearly identical] position is that the borders of the United States are immoral and should be ignored. Therefore Cardinal Mahony advocates the free and unrestricted flow of Mexican citizens across our borders whereupon they must be granted full U.S. citizenship, and of course the full array of social welfare benefits including Obamacare.

One must note here that the sanctity of national borders - upon sober contemplation - are essential to the very concept of the nation state, which cannot exist without them. Perhaps the Cardinal should familiarize himself with the Treaty of Westphalia [1648] which firmly established this principle as the core element of international law.

Cardinal Mahony, in his foolish arrogance, has rejected all of this, everything that makes his ignorant blogging possible - the natural rights, freedom, liberty, wealth and bounty brought about by a Judeo-Christian society based upon private property and capitalism.

Cardinal Mahony thus joins with the utopian Catholic revisionists in pursuit of the ultimate moral confusion, forcing man's notion of order and justice ahead of God's.

Again, the Cardinal and his many adherents should be ashamed for while they have the right - thanks to the system in which they live - to publicly advocate ignorant and terribly harmful ideas, I personally object to them trying to cloak and defend their hidebound socialism through the misuse of Catholic and/or Christian dogma.

This Sunday as the Cardinal - preparing for Holy Week - looks out over his congregation, noting the empty pews and dwindling numbers, he need not wonder why - he has his answer.

Note:

1. Full text available here New Advent The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas Second and Revised Edition, 1920Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican ProvinceOnline Edition Copyright

March 24, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Reports that the Saudi Kingdom has just initiated a major anti-terror effort in the country have been streaming out of the Middle East for hours now.

The target appears to be AQP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a subsidiary of bin-Laden's organization led by one of his former commanders, but not necessarily controlled by him or his command structure] which was thought to be plotting a series of attacks against the Saudi oil infrastructure - "Saudi Arabia said Wednesday its security forces had arrested 113 militants with ties to Al Qaeda who had been planning attacks against oil operations and security facilities in the eastern part of the kingdom." [source, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25saudi.html]

The terror threat within the kingdom has been increasing recently, marked by events such as the attempted assassination by a suicide bomber of national security official Prince Mohammed bin-Naif in his home last summer.

According to the Saudi Defense Agency, nearly half of those being detained are Yemenis, a reminder of the danger posed by Saudi's porous southern border.

The al-Qaeda presence in Yemen came to wide public notice last Christmas when a Yemeni trained wannabe suicide bomber - Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab - attempted to blow up a US airliner using explosives hidden in his underwear.

Cardinal Roger Mahoney's Baloney

By WILLIAM MAYER

March 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A visit to LA Cardinal Roger Mahoney's blog [see, http://cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot.com] should be a startling revelation for a traditional Catholic, or American for that matter. Unfortunately what should be a revelation isn't - not by a long shot. Given the rapid and downward turn of events since Obama's bait-and-switch electoral victory 16 months ago, nothing in the way of iconoclastic change should startle thoughtful observers. Yet despite this fact, the dawn of every day brings with it such unprecedented breaks with the past that one might feel in need of a road map to determine at what juncture the wrong turn was made.

That point being beyond the intent of this writing, allow us to consider Cardinal Mahoney's political blogging which contains this post from March 21:

"Health care reform passed on Sunday night, and brought millions of people out of the shadows of living without health care coverage. We have reached out to them precisely to include them fully into American life and protections. Now we need to do the same thing with our millions of immigrants who are living in the shadows of our society but without protections and guarantees--because they do not yet possess legal status. We need to devote ourselves to bring about a comprehensive bill which will bring them into full participation in the life of our country..."

In the space of less than 100 words the Cardinal tosses overboard in a mind-bendingly cavalier manner, the single most important tenet underlying Judaism, Christianity and Western Civilization, that being the idea of free choice.

Allow me to explain...briefly...

Thomas Aquinas and other theologians have written extensively on the subject, often referring to Deuteronomy 30:19, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed..." [American Standard translation]

"It is written (Sirach 15:14): 'God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel'...That is of his free-will." I answer that, Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain. In order to make this evident, we must observe that some things act without judgment; as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things which lack knowledge. And some act from judgment, but not a free judgment; as brute animals. For the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned, from a natural and not a free judgment, because it judges, not from reason, but from natural instinct. And the same thing is to be said of any judgment of brute animals. But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct, but from some act of comparison in the reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power of being inclined to various things. For reason in contingent matters may follow opposite courses, as we see in dialectic syllogisms and rhetorical arguments. Now particular operations are contingent, and therefore in such matters the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determinate to one. And forasmuch as man is rational is it necessary that man have a free-will..." [source, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas Second and Revised Edition, 1920]

The power of this line of thought is revelatory and undeniable, unless man is created free to choose both rightly and wrongly, he can't be held morally responsible for his actions.

This is the kernel upon which the Western experience has been built, a continuous striving to maximize conditions so that the exercise of this freedom is unfettered, set against the Biblically derived admonition that one must choose rightly.

The ideals that serve as the foundation of Western experience are personal freedom and liberty, especially as they pertain to the constantly impinging force of governance.

In our system the belief has been that governance should guarantee and foster this process.

As John Locke, perhaps the Founder's single most influential source of philosophy [the ethical basis for the moral contract] on establishing the American model wrote, "The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

So the maximization of that which extends and preserves freedom and liberty should be the goal of all who live in the West, especially those responsible for governing.

Following from this, if this process of maximization is good, then its opposite, diminution of freedom and liberty - outside the maintenance of the structure which allows such choice, i.e. the laws under which we operate - is not morally defensible either from the standpoint of Judeo-Christian theology or its secular embodiment, Western political philosophy.

Let us examine now Cardinal Mahoney's stand on what has rightly come to be known as Obamacare. in light of the foregoing [we will ignore Mahoney and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops weasel word opposition to federally funded abortions in deference to the larger concern here].

Though its proponents deny the characterization, Obamacare socializes America's health industry - with use of the word socialism properly noted, placing one-sixth of the economy - and every U.S. citizen - under strict government control.

The degree of control here is near total, with federal bureaucrats being given the power to force their will upon decisions traditionally made by doctors and their patients.

The mechanism whereby this will be enforced is draconian. This legislation creates approximately 100 boards, agencies, programs and other control devices [final number determined by unelected bureaucrats behind closed doors and hidden in perhaps 100,000 pages of new health regulations] ultimately enforced by an army of 16,000 new IRS agents whose duty it will be to force compliance, under the ultimate threat of prison.

This is a level of intrusion completely alien to both the Christian as well as the American tradition.

In 1891 Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum an Encyclical devoted to, as reflected in the document's subtitle, the Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor. [see, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html]

This broadside is seen as the Church's response to socialism which had become a major topic of concern upon the publishing in 1848 of Marx's The Communist Manifesto and later, in 1867, of the first volume of the philosopher's further assault on capitalism, Das Kapital.

In Rerum Novarum Pope Leo established the Church's broad based theological opposition to socialism and the sanctity of private property.

"...To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies...Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life... The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home... Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property..."

In the 130 years since this first declaration by the Church, leftist philosophers and errant theologians have put forth the proposition - based upon a topsy-turvy Biblical revisionism - that Jesus was a progressive Democrat - a socialist - bent upon income and property redistribution and societal leveling.

In his support of Obamacare, albeit his above noted wink-wink-nod-nod opposition to Obamabortions [they will of course be forced by the courts as even a dull attorney would surmise, likely as a 14th Amendment action, if the legislation stands its soon to be withering judicial review] Cardinal Mahoney errs greatly because no one has the right to their private property unless they can control it and the most important private property is one's body, which has been given to each of us, for safekeeping until we are called to final account.

It is this control of one's body through what were heretofore private decisions made by individuals in conjunction with their physicians that Obamacare obliterates.

Cardinal Mahoney should be ashamed.

Next, the Cardinal's immigration stand.

In the same sense that the Hippocratic oath compels physicians to first do no harm, we as a nation - as a faith based people, Christians and Jews - are obligated, morally, philosophically, theologically and legally to obey the law [yes of course, the laws must be just, the topic for another essay].

This societally agreed upon mandate is what causes the United States to be a nation of laws which theoretically apply equally to all, hence our seminal document, the Constitution.

On the immigration question Cardinal Mahoney's [we will leave aside at this juncture, the position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is nearly identical] position is that the borders of the United States are immoral and should be ignored. Therefore Cardinal Mahoney advocates the free and unrestricted flow of Mexican citizens across our borders whereupon they must be granted full U.S. citizenship, and of course the full array of social welfare benefits including Obamacare.

One must note here that the sanctity of national borders - upon sober contemplation - are essential to the very concept of the nation state, which cannot exist without them. Perhaps the Cardinal should familiarize himself with the Treaty of Westphalia [1648] which firmly established this principle as the core element of international law.

Cardinal Mahoney, in his foolish arrogance, has rejected all of this, everything that makes his ignorant blogging possible - the natural rights, freedom, liberty, wealth and bounty brought about by a Judeo-Christian society based upon private property and capitalism.

Cardinal Mahoney thus joins with the Catholic revisionists - advocates of utopianism - the ultimate in moral confusion in that it sets man's notion of order and justice ahead of God's.

Again, the Cardinal and his many adherents should be ashamed for while they have the right - thanks to the system in which they live - to publicly advocate ignorant and terribly harmful ideas, I personally object to them trying to cloak and defend their hidebound socialism through the misuse of Catholic or Christian dogma.

This Sunday as the Cardinal - preparing for Holy Week - looks out over his congregation, noting the empty pews and dwindling numbers, he need not wonder why - he has his answer.

Holder/Obama Release Two More Uighur Terror Suspects

March 24, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - With Switzerland apparently having lost the coin toss, DOJ today announced that it is sending two GITMO Uighur detainees to the idylic, traditionally neutral country.

The Uighurs - Chinese nationals, apprehended on the Afghan battlefield - will apparently be residing in the Swiss Canton of Jura thanks to team Obama.

The history of terror recidivism among released GITMO detainees does not bode well for this latest effort at repatriation. As Bill Rogio notes in Long War Journal, "a former Guantanamo detainee transferred from the detention facility to Afghanistan on Dec. 19, 2009, has already returned to the Taliban's ranks, according to multiple intelligence officials contacted by the Long War Journal. The former detainee was identified in documents produced at Guantanamo as Abdul Hafiz (as well as an alternative name, Abdul Qawi) and given an internment serial number of 1030. During the more than six years he was held at Guantanamo, Hafiz was repeatedly identified as "a suspect in the murder of an International Red Cross worker in Afghanistan." Memos produced at Guantanamo also alleged that Hafiz participated in the jihad against the Soviets, ran madrassas and recruited young men to fight for the Taliban, was "responsible for maintaining contacts with Mullah Mohammed Omar," and fought in a 40-man militia comprised of fighters from the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's insurgency group..." [source, Former Gitmo detainee targeting Afghan charities]

In a recent statement John Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, said that about 20% of released GITMO detainees return to active jihad, noting parenthetically that figure "wasn't that bad," compared to the recidivism rate among domestic U.S. prisoners - none of whom - we must highlight - were engaged in Islamic jihad against America.

Since the inception of the active war on terror nearly 600 detainees have been released from the Cuban facility, with 183 still remaining.

The State of Things - CA & Fed Health and Education Legislation

CAMILLE GIGLIO, Legislative Analyst

March 23, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - There is a 30 day waiting period between the end date for filing new bills and having those bills show up in committees. That waiting period is about to expire. Also, very likely little activity has been occurring on legislation, especially health and education bills, until the Obama Care bill is signed. So, beginning this week or next bills may be starting to move.

In the meantime here are two bills to carefully watch.

California

AB 1542, Medical Records: Homes - This bill is authored by the Assembly Health Committee. It establishes the Patient-Centered Medical Home Act pilot project. This creates the authority to assign every health care client's medical records to a specific location. It further assigns the patient to that location, or medical home, creating a patient/doctor partnership. A team of medical personnel form a contract with each patient to oversee and guide that patient's health care, mostly preventive care.

This home is sort of the gatekeeper approach to health care somewhat like the procedure for Kaiser patients, it would seem.

At this time the bill carries no penalties for a patient's failure to live up to the agreements of the health care contract. There is other legislation establishing peer review boards to track the performance level of the personnel, denying them new patients or payments for failure to provide appropriate care which could be used to punish those who fail to secure the compliance of the patient.

This bill has been sitting in committee since July, 2009, and is now beginning to see action. It has passed the Assembly and is now awaiting action in the Senate Health Committee.

The main selling point of this bill might be that this would be one way to restrain the costs of health care in the Obama bill.

Federal

HR 1303, Robert Menendez, (D-NJ), Women's Medical Home Demonstration Act. Authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a three year pilot program for a women's medical home demonstration project to guide the redesign of the health care delivery system for women to oversee the delivery of "targeted, continuous, coordinated, confidential and comprehensive care to eligible individuals" beginning at age 13, or for any woman on MediCaid or Children's Health Insurance Program - CHIP.

Key elements:

This project can be headquartered at a medical facility or clinic.

It can include family planning services.

Preventing cervical cancer by immunization. That means vaccination of teen girls with Gardasil?

Overcomes "health disparities for minority women.

It will reward (or punish) the management of the care through performance-based bonus payments, incentive payments.

It will create a woman's medical home advisory council consisting of 13 stakeholders, as they call it, representing various aspects of government and private health care professional levels.

There will be a continual analysis and assessment of which women, based on "demographic facts, such as age, race, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status benefit the most from participating in a women's medical home."

Cost savings to Medicaid, CHIP and other federal programs will also be evaluated.

At this time there is no indication of who is sponsoring or supporting this legislation, but I have little doubt that Planned Parenthood is behind this. Becoming the controlling agent for women's health and reproductive activities has always been their goal.

SECURING JOBS

Now that the Health Care Insurance seems securely in place you may have noticed that President Obama is calling for a jobs bill. This is workforce development and it fits right into the health care over all plan just like the medical home. A healthy person is a healthy worker. A healthy worker is a happy worker. One can become a healthy and happy worker by submitting his working desires to a government controlled jobs and career training program either in a one-stop career center for adults or through technical education in the schools.More about this as it develops.

PARISH NURSING.

A Lutheran trained Minister named Granger Westberg first conceived of the idea of delivering government services to citizens by accessing the people through churches.He had accompanied a U.S. Health Department fact finding trip to China in the early 1980's, and saw the resistance of the people to direct contact by government officials. Being a minister he realized two things, A) people would have more trust in their minister than in a government official, B) people, especially women, have more trust in a woman than in a man and would confide in that woman much more easily than to a man or to a minister. He is credited with developing the delivery of "services" to parishioners in what is now termed faith based health care ministries. This is total, comprehensive health care; social, emotional, spiritual and physical.

This parish nurse, though often an actual registered nurse, can be anyone with the ability to have a pleasing personality and good listening skills. The Parish nurse often starts out as a non-paid, volunteer member of the church, but, in fact does not need to be either of the same faith or non-salaried.

The position of Parish Nurse is elevated to one of authority right alongside the pastor. She is designated as an essential provider of spiritual, physical and emotional well-being for the parish. She establishes a partnership with community organizations and attempts to match parishioners with what she determines to be needed services of a community agency.

According to one Catholic church parish nurse that I interviewed she even refers women to Planned Parenthood which is merely one of the community agencies with which she establishes a raport. Though she started out all friendly when I asked her how it was possible for a Catholic parish nurse to refer a pregnant teen to Planned Parenthood she instantly became very reserved and spoke very distinctly, saying that: it was not her position to be judgmental. She was there merely to provide information about agencies and what they provided. It was up to the person to decide which services to use and what agencies to contact.

Though the parish council may give approval for this it is seldom to never fully explained by the parishioners. It starts usually with a questionnaire being given to those attending Sunday Services. It asks parishioners what they would like to see in the way of assistance from their church and other types of somewhat invasive questions. From this they create a foregone conclusion that parishioners are "needy" and can only be brought to spiritual and physical wholeness through the aid of government programs.It has happened that parishes have received payment for directing parishioners to sign up for MediCal or Healthy Families.This parish nurse said that she brought the program to her pastor who took it to the parish council which approved it. The Bishop was not contacted for approval.The Parish Nursing Program is endorsed by Planned Parenthood and can receive start-up funding through the federal faith-based initiative legislation. Within a period of time the outside funding disappears and the parish is required to take up the costs of running this government representative-in-the-parish program.

This hands-off attitude by church officials regarding associating with Planned parenthood but not approving abortion and family planning is standard operating procedure in many Dioceses in California and elsewhere. This thinking is what enables Catholic Pastors to form associations with ACORN and PICO and its affiliates. It's sort of the Pontius Pilate syndrome.Wash your hands of the whole abortion thing, look the other way while the vulnerable are sent off to Planned Parenthood but applaud the affordable housing, community organizing training, help for immigrants, etc.

Find out if your church has a Parish Nurse Program and if your collection plate money is going for membership in a PICO type community organizing membership. I asked the parish nurse I interviewed if her pastor was active with CCISCO - the Contra Costa branch of PICO? She said: Oh, yes,he is heavily involved with CCISCO.

February 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Two suspects [Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin] in the 2009 NY subway terror plot led by Najibullah Zazi were scheduled to appear in federal court today facing a five count indictment.

Among the most serious charges is conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property in the United States.

Says AG Holder,"The facts alleged in this indictment shed further light on the scope of this attempted attack and underscore the importance of using every tool we have available to both disrupt plots against our nation and hold suspected terrorists accountable for their actions...this attack would have been deadly, and the many agents, prosecutors and intelligence professionals who worked together seamlessly to thwart it deserve our thanks."

The two face additional charges which include providing material support, including currency, training, communications equipment and personnel, to a foreign terrorist organization, namely al-Qaeda.

If found guilty on all counts the two could be facing as much as 35 years in federal prison

February 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Mosab Hassan Yousef's long journey out of the dark world of terrorism began in 1996 when he joined the Israeli Shin Bet state security organization after being jailed.In 1999 after losing his faith in Islam he converted to Christianity.

The details of that trek are set forth in Yousef's book "Son of Hamas," which will come out next week.

Yousef is the son of senior Hamas terrorist Sheikh Hassan Yousef making his rise to power in the organization less complicated than might necessarily be the case, providing the sleeper agent with sufficient information to have helped disrupt dozens of terrorist bombings.

February 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Finally responding to a November request by Charles Grassley [R, IA] and other Senators to identify which current DOJ attorneys either represented [or advocated for via submission of amicus briefs] Islamic terrorists before coming to the administration, or came from law firms who supplied pro-bono legal services to them, AG Holder continues to stonewall, refusing to identify - outside of the two DOJ lawyers whose work on these cases was already public knowledge - who within the department have represented terrorists.

The situation is neither academic nor does it represent a fishing expedition, as some of these same DOJ attorneys are engaged in shaping American anti-terror policy and their previous work may well indicate a level of bias unacceptable when dealing with sensitive national security issues.

Below the operative section of Holders letter, the entire text can be accessed at [Administration Refuses to Answer Questions About Government Employees Working on Guantanamo Detainee Issues at the Justice Department, http://grassley.senate.gov/about/upload/Judiciary-02-19-10-response-from-DOJ-on-Gitmo-recusals.pdf]

"With regard to the specific requests in your letter, the Department does not maintaincomprehensive records of such information about individual Department employees. We have,however, obtained information responsive to your interests from the Office of the AttorneyGeneral, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of the Associate AttorneyGeneral, the Office of Legal Counsel, the Office of the Solicitor General, the National SecurityDivision, the Civil Division, and the Criminal Division. To the best of our knowledge, duringtheir employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as politicalappointees in those components represented detainees, and four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf ofdetainees. None, as far as we are aware, did so as registered lobbyists. Others had noinvolvement in representing detainees or other entities in detainee cases, but came to theDepartment from law firms where other lawyers represented detainees, often on a pro bono basis.(It is not surprising that this should be the case: as best as we can determine, of the 50 largestU.S. law firms, at least 34 have either represented detainees or filed amicus briefs in support ofdetainees.) Among senior Department leadership, the last category includes the AttorneyGeneral, the Acting Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, and the AssistantAttorney General for the Criminal Division. In addition, the Assistant Attorney General for theCivil Division previously represented one Afghanistan detainee, and his former employer represents other detainees..."

February 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - "This a indeed great victory for our holy warriors! The Dutch are the first to withdraw from Afghanistan. Allah be praised! This is only the beginning. Other infidel crusaders are bound to follow soon and the country will be ours once again! Praise be to Allah! We defeated the Russian infidels back in 1988. Then, it took less than ten years to throw them out. We'll now defeat the criminal gang in the White House and all those who alligned themselves with them against the Muslims! Praise be to Allah!"

Just imagine we are at Al-Qaeda Headquarters somewhere in Pakistan. Just imagine a high ranking Taliban leader listening to what a top-level Al-Qaeda member told him about the Dutch being the first to withdraw from Afghanistan. The above comments may be fictitious but I have no doubt at all that they are entirely in conformity with the Al-Qaeda/Taliban way of thinking.

Our enemies today are not very different from the enemies back in 1939-'45 - not very different from the equally fanatical German Nazis and Japanese, that is. Like today's Muslim suicide bombers, the Japanese had no fear of death, and the Nazis admired them for it. They 'are ready to die' ('todesbereit'), a Nazi paper wrote about the arrogant and extremely fanatical Japanese warriors whose only God was their holy emperor. (Fortunately many things changed after Japan was defeated.)

"The Muslim American Society (MAS) is an organization with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood...The Muslim Brotherhood founded by Hassan al-Banya in 1928, has provided the ideological underpinning for almost all modern Sunni Islamic terrorist groups..."

[source, http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/44.pdf]

Given this degree of closeness, MAS' breast-beating claims of moderation ring hollow, so it is not surprising that its sister youth group, Muslim Americans for Palestine, would embody the same level of animus towards the West and especially towards Israel.

From the MAP website, "Muslim Americans for Palestine (MAP), a Project of the Muslim American Society (MAS) was established in 2009 to be a source of accurate information to the public at large, to repel and challenge propaganda and discrimination against Palestinians and to bond our community with the significance of Palestine in Islam." [source, http://www.mapalestine.org/home.html]

If MAP's recent convention was as described by Susan Schwartz writing for the Muslim Media Network [see, http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=5611] then the group is simply another Jew bashing operation led by immoderate Muslims.

As Ms. Schwartz notes, a statement by MAP speaker Reem Salahi claimed she "...spoke of "white flag murders", that is the murder by Israelis of innocent civilians whom they had ordered out of their homes and who had complied and exited waving white flags. In at least six incidents the Israelis shot them in cold blood."

Such assertions are part and parcel of radical Palestinian politics as is the absurd notion that Muslims somehow have a legitimate claim - trumping Israel's - to Jerusalem, a city they have renamed al-Aqsa.

February 24, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Invoking a Reagan Era spirit of optimism, David Harmer, candidate for California Congressional District 11, today kicked off his campaign at a packed breakfast event held in San Ramon, California.

Calling the upcoming November election, "the most consequential election in thirty years," Mr. Harmer related his experience as a young volunteer for Ronald Reagan, "thirty years ago in July of 1980 I was on the floor at the Republican National Convention in Detroit when Ronald Reagan accepted the nomination for the presidency of the United States."

That experience seems to have forged Harmer's political philosophy in the Reagan ideal of limited government at an early age.

In today's hard hitting speech, delivered without notes, Mr. Harmer chided the current regime as having turned away from America's founding principles. The solution he offered consists of a return to the, "tried and true principles which are as old as the nation itself," while posing the question, "in another thirty years, will our children still be free?"

Saying that question wasn't hyperbole, he characterized the upcoming elections as being "a test of national character," featuring, "two dramatically different world views."

He said the Democrat's pursuit of ever bigger, more intrusive government over the last two years, hastening under Obama, has forever, "abolished the myth of the moderate Democrat."

Mr. Harmer identified in rapid-fire manner some of the most problematic aspects of president Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's philosophy, criticizing the Democrat approach. He attacked the current healthcare legislation as an effort to "create a top down, command and control one size fits all bureaucratic monstrosity."

On cap and trade he stressed that the administration's intent is to, "increase costs...to create artificial scarcity just to fit some utopian's notion of how we should live," adding almost parenthetically that, "we don't have resource problems, we have regulatory problems."

Noting the congressional district's rise in joblessness when, "unemployment is pushing 20% if you count discouraged workers," Harmer asked why we were still, "spending money we don't have on programs we don't need."

The candidate's call to action was not wasted on the enthusiastic audience, nor was his return to the common theme to, "liberate the people," from an out of control government which has grown out of touch and unresponsive to the needs of the people.

With GOP and Democrat registration in the district tied at 39% each and with Independents quickly moving away from the president, it seems that David Harmer's candidacy is for real and his chances of electoral victory in November better than average.

Siddiqui, born in Pakistan but educated in the United States, was convicted in Judge Richard Berman's Southern New York District court on seven counts including attempted murder of U.S. citizens and U.S. officers and government employees. She was also found guilty of possessing a firearm in the commission of these crimes. Throughout the trial Siddiqui's court demeanor verged on the bizarre, haranguing the court with outbursts, especially directed at Israel, "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America?your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof." [source, http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1202441940762&]

Since the conviction, numerous - primarily anti-American - street demonstrations throughout Pakistan have demanded that Ms. Siddiqui be returned to her home country, where she would presumably be rewarded for having carried out a limited jihad against the United States.

Pak president Zardari has approached U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke, claiming that the return of Siddiqui would "improve relations" between Pakistan and America.

The "relationship" - such as it is - between the nuclear armed Muslim nation of nearly 200 million and America has been "strained" over widespread concern that it isn't serious about battling Islamic radicalism and that elements of the country's intelligence service - the ISI - have actually taken part in various terrorist attacks, especially against its arch-rival India, and are working hand-in-glove to aid Afghanistan's Taliban.

If one is looking for evidence that president Obama's America bashing Muslim charm offensive has been effective one had better steer clear of the image presented by Zardari groveling at the feet of Holbrooke hoping to secure the release of terrorist Siddiqui, because that scene offers a disturbing vignette into the dark heart of Pakistan and by proxy, the Muslim world.

February 22, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A new film Crossing the Line - the Intifada Comes to Campus has debuted in an effort to call attention to the increasing prevalence of Anti-Semitism and Jew bashing on North American college campuses.

Crossing the Line shows how students and professors have used the mechanism of radical Palestinian politics to mask their basic anti-Semitic world view.

The film also explores the linkage between the Muslim Student Association and Egypt's seminal propagator of global jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Below a short clip:

Crossing the Line was produced by Raphael Shore whose other works - Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East, Obsession: Radical Islam's War against the West and The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision for America have served to call attention to the ongoing jihad being waged by radical Muslims. It was directed by Wayne Kopping, and distributed through Imagination Productions.

February 22, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - With Dutch PM Balkenende's government having fallen again, this time over the country's failure of will to maintain a skeleton commitment [approximately 2,000 - 1,600 combat troops 400 working in support roles - who, when they fight, do so under extremely limited rules of engagement] as part of the NATO effort in Afghanistan.

What worries U.S. officials about the government shakeup is whether the development might lead to a domino effect, ultimately scuttling the NATO presence in Afghanistan altogether, at precisely the time when U.S. forces have started the long anticipated push-back against the Taliban and remaining al-Qaeda elements.

With electorates long dominated by the left [witness less that 15% public support for the NATO commitment in either Britain or Germany, see, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/0222/Dutch-government-collapse-Will-other-European-troops-now-leave-Afghanistan] the possibility of a NATO breakup over the question is very real.

"Future schools will be centers for family and social services as well." - William L. Lepley, Dir. Iowa Dept of Education

By CAMILLE GIGLIO

February 22, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The above quote by William L. Lepley was contained in an eye -opening article on education for the future written in the early 1990 's and entitled: 21st century schools will offer learning for all citizens. He was making predictions for the year 2010 most of which seem to be coming true.

Among several revealing predictions he listed,"students evaluations will improve. Instead of grades, students will be assessed not on the work they complete but on the skills they master. Community service will be a graduation requirement." Community service is already a graduation requirement in many schools, especially private and religiously affiliated schools. Right now there are 14 public and Charter schools designated as International Baccalaureate Schools offering Certificates of Mastery rather than traditional graduation diplomas.

He added,"Open enrollment will allow students to attend different schools to take advantage of a particular curriculum or offerings at that institution. Students will move out of the system without barriers such as district boundaries, grade levels, neighborhood locations or regulatory restrictions."

In January the California Governor signed a state version of the federal Race To The Top legislation calling for, among other things, "open enrollment" and suggesting that the understanding of neighborhood will become much broader. It was also suggested by Assemblyman Mark Wyland 's legislative Aide s of regionalization of 6 or more states with California to establish core career technology standards.

February 17, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Toyota Motor Corporation has been by most accounts the world's most successful automobile manufacturer for many years, a lofty domain secured officially in 2008 when the company dethroned the pretender, General Motors.

The omnipresence of Toyota's marquee was based upon a deserved reputation for quality which far surpassed that of its domestic competitors.

Of note, a JD Power quality study published in the summer of 2009 once again declared Toyota the leader in automobile quality, a position it has had a lock on for ages. An AP article published at the time literally screamed, "Toyota Still King, Toyota, which overtook GM last year as the world's biggest automaker, dominated the J.D. Power honors. It swept awards in 10 vehicle categories, and its plant in Japan that builds the Lexus SC 430 and Toyota Corolla took the award for top plant. For GM, only two brands performed above average..." [source, Toyota Still King, June 22, 2009, http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2009/06/jd_power_and_associates_detroi.html]

The brand was so popular that a particular model the Prius, a hybrid vehicle, became a cult classic among the enviro-crowd, a symbol bespeaking [rightly or wrongly] the owner's devotion to the small carbon footprint lifestyle so in vogue among today's progressives.

Three groups comprise the effort, the Democratic Governors Association [DGA] , Level the Playing Field 2010 and California Working Families 2010. The first advertising blitz should hit the airwaves shortly.

DGA is based in Washington, DC which might in some circles raise the specter of "outside" interests meddling in CA politics.

As Capitol Weekly notes about the developing campaign, "A new independent expenditure committee backed by labor groups and other major donors is coming together to boost Jerry Brown and other Democratic candidates across the state... The Working Families coalition is expected to include labor unions including the California Conference of Carpenters.. It will be run by several political operatives with close ties to the Obama administration. Among them, Larry Grisolano, a partner in the Chicago-based political firm AKPD, where Obama political guru David Axelrod is a partner..." [source, http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_c=ymfa5d7izjxlyd&xid=ymetxslr5i5n50&done=.ymfa5d7izkhlyd]

February 16, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Given the negative direction American foreign policy has drifted in the space of a single year under team Obama, it would be foolish to underestimate this administration's witlessness.

That said, Secty of State Hillary Clinton's revelation today that "by gosh," Iran might not be democratic and it just might be heading towards dictatorship [military...led by the Revolutionary Guard Corp] is among the most vapid things yet to come out of team Obama.

That level of ignorance, at the same time demonstrates what a ridiculous choice Hillary Clinton was for Secty. of State.

"We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship."

Of course the problem goes much deeper than individual incompetency, it's systemic.

If her analysis holds any water at all, Hillary's thesis [no doubt signed off at the highest levels in the West Wing] must be based upon the proposition that since the creation of the Mullocracy in 1979, the Islamic dictatorship that has seemingly dominated the country for over 30 years now has actually been subject to the will of the people, exercised through the Iranian parliament.

As a result, it now comes apparently as a total shock to State that the legislature doesn't really call the shots in Iran, and this development might lend itself to a corresponding lack of freedom in the country.

One might have hoped that this crowd would have taken the hint, judging from the river of blood flowing in Tehran's streets, perhaps Mrs. Clinton and her oafish handlers need a brief history lesson.

In 1979 the Carter administration [the patron saint of the current DC brain-trust] created the Iranian Revolution, so let's lay the big egg in the appropriate nest, Barack and Hillary's party.

February 15, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Nestled in the verdant surrounding hills of Moraga, California, in soft focus, St. Mary's College seems to be the embodiment of what Catholic higher education should be about.

Established in 1863 by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the institution's administration quickly passed to the De La Salle Christian Brothers who have run it ever since.

Though nominally providing a Catholic educational environment, like most American college campuses, St. Mary's has become in many way secularized to the point where whatever link to "Catholic" it has is more synonymous with the word's alternative definition of "universal" rather than being reflective of a substantive relationship with the world's largest and oldest, Christian sect.

The school's literature [a marketing study in this case] bears testament to the validity of such a conclusion:

"Catholic: Saint Mary's Catholic identity is evident in both the name and the appearance of the college. There's a chapel. There's a "mission" feel to campus architecture. But is Catholicism experienced as something deeper? Is it an integral part of a Saint Mary's education? Our research yielded mixed responses to these questions. Among alumni, we found a stronger connection to Saint Mary's Catholic nature among older (and Catholic) alumni; they told us Catholic traditions were an important part of their Saint Mary's experience. (In fact, any perceived move away from Catholic self-definition could be seen as a betrayal by those who identify with Saint Mary's Catholic traditions.) Non-Catholic and more recent alumni tend to see Saint Mary's as a liberal arts college that just happens to be Catholic."

February 15, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A new Islamic broadcasting network, the Netherlands Muslim Broadcasting Foundation or SMON, has recently been granted permission to broadcast in the Netherlands. There were lots of problems with previous similar Muslim networks, and it may not be very different this time. Chairman of the new network is Radi Suudi, a Dutch Palestinian and a wellknown defender of Palestinian causes. I once visited him in Amsterdam to discuss Middle Eastern issues. I remember he even demanded money for the information provided by him. 'Time is money,' he simply said. He may be right, but very few people I talked to in my long journalistic career, ever asked for money.

SMON was initiated by the Dutch Union of Moroccan Mosque Organizations and the Dutch branch of the World Islamic Mission (WIM). However, Mohammed Anas Noorani Siddique, the spiritual leader of WIM, is a radical cleric from Pakistan. He strongly condemns a moderate and liberal Islamic sect called the Ahmadiya. 'I would rather die than consider them to be Muslims,' he said in September 2006. SMON chairman Suudi claims that Siddique's organization will not be able to influence the content of TV or radio programs. The broadcasting board and the journalists will be independent, he says. I am not so sure about this.

Another dubious supporter of Suudi's broadcasting network is a Dutch Moroccan named Mohammed Cheppih. Although Cheppih nowadays presents himself as a moderate Muslim, he once publicly applauded Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Palestinian suicide bombers and propagated corporal punishment. I remember he showed an intense interest in several major Dutch terror trials back in 2002 and 2003. He also played a role in the fundamentalist Al-Fourqaan Mosque in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven where he had many friends. Two of his friends traveled to the Indian part of Kashmir at the end of 2001, presumably to join the Islamic jihad. Cheppih was then chairman of the controversial Muslim World League (MWL). Cheppih got his theological training in Saudi Arabia. His Saudi professor Abu Bakr El Jezeiri, an arch conservative Muslim theologian, published the book 'The Path of the Muslim,' in which he called for the public execution of gay men by throwing them from the highest roof in the city. In addition, El Jezeiri told his followers: 'Adulterous' women must be stoned to death. He also advocates the death penalty for Muslims who convert to Christianity, Judaism or communism. (El Jezeiri's book was translated into Dutch and made readily available by several mosques and Islamic bookshops.) Cheppih has now publicly distanced himself from such radical views but is there any guarantee that he is not just another Tariq Ramadan, a man he strongly admires but who, unfortunately, has a reputation of being rather double-tongued?

February 11, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Against a backdrop which finds the Western world in a state of paralysis and denial regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions, today the country's dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that Iran had succeeded in enriching uranium to a weapons grade level.

The boast accompanied a statement yesterday again threatening Israel saying that it should be destroyed now, "once and for all."

The announcement was made on a day in which anti-government demonstrations were planned across the country, especially in Tehran. Though reports are still spotty coming out of the country it appears that government action designed to limit access to the city by the protesters was largely successful.

February 11, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid have both sworn that, regardless of opposition, they will see the passage of Health Care Reform no matter how high they have to jump or low they have to crawl - or, into how many pieces of legislation they have to break the monster into before you swallow it all.

In the mind of the bureaucrat a person needing health care is not a patient. That person is a consumer of a health care industry services, mainly preventive services. To these types, all a person has to do is resign themselves to womb to tomb care in exchange for the promise of a guaranteed outcome producing healthy happy workers and community volunteers who need not rely on themselves because the government does it all for you.

The main reason that strong objections have arisen around the health care package has been the recognition that it is a mandated nationwide master plan controlled and developed by bureaucrats for bureaucrats not for the health care industry and certainly not for the benefit of individuals.

While we are all being distracted by this obviously important debate, legislators across the country have found another pathway for obtaining their objective of centralized control of citizens lives. That route is through the development of what is referred to as workforce development and/or Career Technical Education - CTE.

If the people are ill and in need of government infusions of assistance so is the economy, ailing and in need of large doses of bureaucratic ObamaWorkforce legislation.

February 9, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Robert Ford is slated to become ambassador to Syria, restoring diplomatic ties with the Bashar al-Assad led government broken in 2005 when Syria's involvement in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was strongly suspected.

Ford is considered by some [see, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61258F20100203]d to be part of the "Arabist" contingent at State, a pejorative term meaning diplomats who some believe are pro-Arab [gone native] in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the extensive experience they have in the Middle East has led them to a pro-Palestinian bias.

Ford has wide experience in the Middle East. A fluent Arab speaker, he has most recently served in Algeria with previous service in both Iraq and Lebanon.

He will come on station at a critical time, when Iran, Assad's prime benefactor, is coming under not only Western but Arab pressure because of its threatening nuclear stance.

February 8, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The London School of Islamics [LSI, created in 1981] is a British Muslim pressure group [it bills itself as "an educational Trust"] whose mission statement reflects an ambitious agenda.

"1. The aim is to make British public, institutions and media aware of the issues of the Muslim community in the field of education and possible solutions.

2. To help with social, personal, emotional and educational issues and problems.

Floating above these laundry list issues looms what seems to be the LSI's real emphasis, goading the British government into underwriting the Islamification of the country, starting with its schools.

"The demand for Muslim schools comes from parents who want their children a safe environment with an Islamic ethos. Parents see Muslim schools where children can develop their Islamic Identity where they won't feel stigmatised for being Muslims and they can feel confident about their faith. Muslim schools are working to try to create a bridge between communities. There is a belief among ethnic minority parens [sic] that the British schooling does not adequatly [sic] address their cultural needs. Failing to meet this need could result in feeling resentment among a group who already feel excluded. Setting up Muslim school is a defensive response."

Rather than promoting a "bridge" between Britain's aggressive Muslim population and the larger society, it seems far more probable that the establishment of state-funded Muslim schools will quickly see them devolve into Muslim-centric enclaves which will inevitably lead to further schism, a lever really by which the state could be used to fund its own remaking according to a Shari'a compliant template.

February 5, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Designed to rip the hastily applied conservative veneer from newly minted CA Senatorial candidate Tom Campbell, the Fiorina for Senate campaign has placed a devastating ad on YouTube, critiquing the career politician's long record of economic and social liberalism.

The ad begins with the words "purity" and "piety," followed by a voice sarcastically intoning "our fiscally conservative leaders..." It then segues into the image of a rather plump sheep atop a Greek column, a position from which it then tumbles unceremoniously, head over hoofs, to the ground.

After fully developing the sheep imagery, the piece rapidly shifts into a more standard type political hit piece detailing the numerous occasions in which Campbell has and continues to advocate liberal tax measures, most recently his backing of a plan to - unbelievably - triple California's already highest in the nation gasoline tax by 2012.

The ad ends with the sheep showing its true intent, morphing into a wolf in disguise.

Of note, when Campbell, a perennial candidate for just about any office, decided to abandon his short-lived campaing for governor in favor of running for the seat of Barbara Boxer instead, some political insiders thought it would snuff the life out of political neophyte Fiorina's bid for the same seat. However, the release of this ad proves those concerns were misplaced and that thsi candidate has more than enough aggressiveness to lock heads with the likes of RINO Campbell.

February 4, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a rare positive development coming out of what is arguably the most dangerous area on the globe, today India announced its desire to meet with arch-rival Pakistan primarily to discuss security matters.

Relations between the two countries have been on hold since the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed nearly 170 including 6 Americans.

It is widely believed that elements of Pakistan's ISI were involved in the operation though Pakistan immediately and vigorously denied the charges.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi the Pakistani Foreign Minister, stated that he welcomed the offer and that it was his desire that the discussions should be wide ranging.

February 4, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, born in Pakistan but educated in the United States, has been convicted in Judge Richard Berman's Southern New York District court on seven counts including attempted murder of U.S. citizens and U.S. officers and government employees. She was also found guilty of possessing a firearm in the commission of these crimes.

Throughout the trial Siddiqui's court demeanor verged on the bizarre, haranguing the court with outbursts, especially directed at Israel, "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America?your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof." [source, http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1202441940762&]

Siddiqui was arrested in the Afghani province of Ghazni. accused of attempting to carry out a terrorist attack. A search of her handbag revealed plans to carry out a mass casualty type assault. During an interrogation session conducted by U.S. forces Siddiqui grabbed the M-4 carbine which the interrogating officer had laid on the ground and started firing wildly. She was subdued by the same officer who brought her down with his side arm.

February 4, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - With millions of eyes glued to television sets all over the world, viewers were stunned into silence when at approximately 9:00 EST on the morning of February 1, 2003, during the always critical re-entry phase of the flight, the shuttle Columbia came apart in the upper atmosphere for reasons largely still unknown [the role of solar flares are strongly suspected] resulting in the loss of the entire crew and the grounding of the space fleet.

So it was surprising then that Mr. Obama took the occasion of the seventh anniversary of that shuttle disaster to announce his decision to kill the single lasting testament of the JFK administration, the lunar manned space flight program.

Curiously, for the anti-capitalist Obama, at the time of the announcement - perhaps to provide plausible deniability - he suggested that manned space should instead become the purview of private enterprise, stranger still when considering that by killing the U.S. program much of the newest hardware [specifically, the Ares missile and Orion crew capsule] would die with it, pulling the rug out from the primary mechanism whereby space travel might become more appealing

When asked to comment about the decision "Bizarre," is the term Michael Griffin, a physicist and former NASA Administrator used to describe it adding, "for the U.S. government to deliberately give up its lead in something which is fundamentally an enterprise of governments ... for the United States to give up something that's an important part of our national identity in favor of outsourcing it to commercial enterprises when and as they come into being is bizarre."

Demonstrating a grand vision sorely lacking in Obama's frigid collectivist mechanistics, in 2004 testimony to Congress Griffin stated, "for me the single overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of the solar system, and eventually beyond. I can think of no lesser purpose sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater purpose is possible."

For this administration, so wrapped up in "democratizing" the economy through federal confiscation, to reject a government role in space travel - perhaps one of the few areas of enterprise in which a government/private partnership can thrive - the decision to so cavalierly kill the soul of the space program demonstrates the intellectual wasteland from which it emanates.

Compounding the shortsightedness of this move - announcing it on the anniversary of the Columbia disaster - is simply additional evidence that for all of the purported wisdom housed within this administration, in the non-pretend world, it has far less grasp of the "vision thing," than even the originator of that odd locution, GHW Bush.

February 4, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - There is an old aphorism which goes "be careful what you wish for, it may come true," or some variation on that theme, which comes to mind observing the chorus of breast beating, wailing and gnashing of teeth which have accompanied the release of the autotopsy of imam Luqman Abdullah.

Abdullah, leader of a radical Islamist separatist group which called itself "the Ummah," [Arabic for the Muslim community] to which he preached a message that Islam should be spread by violent jihad, once reportedly quipping, "Don't carry a gun if you are going to give it to the cops, give them a bullet instead," was killed in Dearborn during a gunfight with various police agencies including local police and at least one FBI SWAT team.

The autopsy documents [go here to view, warning its fairly graphic, http://download.gannett.edgesuite.net/detnews/2010/pdf/0201imam.pdf] 21 bullet wounds to the imam's body, testament to the ferocity of the engagement. The attached toxicology report noted the presence of chlorpheneramine - an antihistamine, dextromethorphan - an antitussive [cough suppressant] and diphenhydramine [generic for Benadryl] also an antihistamine, in Abdullah's blood.

Immediately upon the release of the report, the Islamist apologists hastily declared their availability to a media always eager to pounce on tragic events they can spin into boiler plate narratives suggesting police brutality, over reaction or both.

February 2, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Speculation is swirling around DC upon cable news announcements that various smaller East Coast cities are being considered as potential sites for the trial of KSM, now that opinion seems to have turned against New York City, especially in the wake of Mayor Bloomberg's solid opposition.

If reports coming out of the Connecticut Law Tribune [see, http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=36237] are correct, New Haven, Connecticut is in the running, for this unenviable undertaking.

" Cable News Network and other media outlets reported Monday that no final decision has been made on moving the trial out of New York City. But Fox News and the New York Post are among those that have mentioned Otisville, N.Y. (home to a federal prison that could house the suspects during a trial), White Plains, N.Y., and New Haven as possible sites. Neither organization provided a specific source for its information, other than someone inside the White House."

All of this is further evidence of disarray within DOJ and the WH

In an exclusive interview with the Law Tribune, an attorney for Abu-Jihadd suggested that New Haven was particularly attractive from the standpoint of security, having professionally dealt with maintaining public safety during the trial of his client.

February 2, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Found not guilty on the basis of a controversial 2008 decision, the highest court in the Netherlands has ordered a retrial of the "Hofstad Group."

In this matter the group was charged with making preparations for an attack which has yet to come to fruition.

The Hofstad Group became known publicly as the organization to which Mohammed Bouyeri, the assassin of Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh in November of 2004, election day in the U.S., belonged.

The charges on which the 6 members of Hofstad will be retried stem from their membership in a terrorist organization.

Given Hofstad's decentralized structure proving that it meets the Dutch definition of a "terrorist organization" is the crux of the new case.

One of the suspects in the original trial, a "Jason W" was found guilty of possessing explosive devices and plotting to kill Dutch policemen. Under Holland's lenient sentencing laws, he is only serving a 15 yr sentence.

February 2, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The U.S. House of Representatives is quickly moving to block the Obama administration's ill-considered decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court proceeding.

Legislation to that effect will be introduced today, authored by Frank Wolf [R-VA].

The bill has already garnered 34 sponsors, 3 of which are Democrats.

Rather than confront the administration - on unequal terms - over its decision, the bill is designed to prevent the trial from proceeding by denying the funding with which to carry it out.

The bill essentially mirrors an amendment which Wolf offered previously, to the 2010 omnibus spending bill, which was defeated on a straight party-line vote.

Though estimates differ, most agree that the cost of the KSM trial and accompanying heavy security measures would be in the range of $250 million dollars.

February 1, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - We have noted in the past with alarm, the leftist cant of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB] and its advocacy of positions which undermine the country's national security and the interests for which the Conference supposedly speaks, for example its support of the Soviet led "Nuclear Freeze," ongoing phony interfaith dialogue with individuals and organizations representing a radical Muslim ideology and its support of immigration policies that are so extreme they obliterate the concept of national borders - a dominant principle in Western civilization and international law - recognized for nearly 400 years, at least since the Treaty of Westphalia [1648].

In this same spirit of recklessness has been the USCCB's support of governmental control of the American health care industry - Obamacare.

Publicly their only objection is the inclusion in the legislation - only partially ameliorated via the "Stupak" amendment - of language which promotes funding of abortion, something currently not allowed under federal statutes.

Regardless of whether or not abortion is explicitly or implicitly included in Obamacare should it become law, the effort itself remains a brazen attempt by the feds to seize control of citizens' right to privately make their own health care decisions.

The Church's complicity in such an unprecedented attempted abrogation of free will - a cornerstone of Christian theology - is shameful.

Underecutting this nuanced opposition the group has entertained in the past - the remnants of which are still lurking philosophically - a partnership with at least one of the key mechanisms which today supports this Soviet style healthcare meddling - a major promoter of "abortion rights."

Drawing our attention to this matter is Katie Walker of the American Life League who writes today:

A national group that promotes abortion and homosexual rights has deep ties with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, according to a report released Monday...

February 1, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A new Islamic broadcasting network, the Netherlands Muslim Broadcasting Foundation or SMON, has recently been granted permission to broadcast in the Netherlands. There were lots of problems with previous similar Muslim networks, and it may not be very different this time. Chairman of the new network is Radi Suudi, a Dutch Palestinian and a well known defender of Palestinian causes. I once visited him in Amsterdam to discuss Middle Eastern issues. I remember he even demanded money for the information provided by him. 'Time is money,' he simply said. He may be right, but very few people I talked to in my long journalistic career, ever asked for money.

SMON was initiated by the Dutch Union of Moroccan Mosque Organizations and the Dutch branch of the World Islamic Mission (WIM). However, Mohammed Anas Noorani Siddique, the spiritual leader of WIM, is a radical cleric from Pakistan. He strongly condemns a moderate and liberal Islamic sect called the Ahmadiya. 'I would rather die than consider them to be Muslims,' he said in September 2006. SMON chairman Suudi claims that Siddique's organization will not be able to influence the content of TV or radio programs. The broadcasting board and the journalists will be independent, he says. I am not so sure about this.

Another dubious supporter of Suudi's broadcasting network is a Dutch Moroccan named Mohammed Cheppih. Although Cheppih nowadays presents himself as a moderate Muslim, he once publicly applauded Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Palestinian suicide bombers and propagated corporal punishment. I remember he showed an intense interest in several major Dutch terror trials back in 2002 and 2003. He also played a role in the fundamentalist Al-Fourqaan Mosque in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven where he had many friends. Two of his friends traveled to the Indian part of Kashmir at the end of 2001, presumably to join the Islamic jihad. Cheppih was then chairman of the controversial Muslim World League (MWL). Cheppih got his theological training in Saudi Arabia. His Saudi professor Abu Bakr El Jezeiri, an arch conservative Muslim theologian, published the book 'The Path of the Muslim,' in which he called for the public execution of gay men by throwing them from the highest roof in the city. In addition, El Jezeiri told his followers: 'Adulterous' women must be stoned to death. He also advocates the death penalty for Muslims who convert to Christianity, Judaism or communism. (El Jezeiri's book was translated into Dutch and made readily available by several mosques and Islamic bookshops.) Cheppih has now publicly distanced himself from such radical views but is there any guarantee that he is not just another Tariq Ramadan, a man he strongly admires but who, unfortunately, has a reputation of being rather double-tongued?

January 30, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - President Obama's State of the Union address Wednesday night was a MOM moment. It reminded me of a dinner menu - an appealing pre-entree, a nice dessert and a lot of gravy to cover up the main course in the event it was hard to swallow.

Convincing the public to swallow the main course - centralized management and direction of everyone's life, is Obama's goal. Like a rich meal that clogs the arteries, this main course could clog your cognitive ability, rendering you incapable of recovery.

It was a masterpiece of psychological conditioning regarding the government's role in social and political activities. It fit the out a template offered by Paul E. Rondeau a noted researcher in the subconscious marketing and delivery of change. [see, www.culture-of-life.org]

January 27, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a January 27 piece published in the WashPost [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012604239.html] the author, Dana Priest, tried her hand at countering the increasing criticism of team Obama's nonsensical anti-terror efforts, declaring, "The collaboration with Yemen provides the starkest illustration to date of the Obama administration's efforts to ramp up counterterrorism operations, including in areas outside the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones."

So that the correct interpretation would be drawn, that Mr. Obama leads a vigorous and effective policy to defeat the violent proponents of radical Islam - and to the detriment of Obama's critics - in a heavy handed manner she quickly followed with the obligatory dig at the GOP and the left's satanic über-villain, Dick Cheney, "Republican lawmakers and former vice president Richard B. Cheney have sought to characterize the new president as soft on terrorism after he banned the harsh interrogation methods permitted under Bush and announced his intention to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

One small fact escaping mention in Ms. Priest's journalistic spoon feeding is that until just a few weeks ago, the terror fighter residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was taking incarcerated terrorists from GITMO and releasing them directly to Yemen, whereupon of course they once again joined up with the local al-Qaeda jihadist cells.

Looming even more menacingly in any discussion of this administration's terror policy vis a vis Yemen is Obama's complete failure to aggressively debrief the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Fact: It was reported by ABC [see, Terror in the Skies, Suspects Family Speaks Overnight, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/abdulmutallab-yemen-northwest-flight-253-terror-suspect/story?id=9430536] a month ago, that Abdulmutallab was absolutely babbling, upon being detained, about his training in Yemen and that there were others who were trained at the same time and were on their way to the United States who would soon strike.

January 26, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Released last week with little fanfare, the Department of Defense's "Independent Review Relating To Fort Hood" demonstrates in a startlingly clear manner, the self-destructive mindset which has often plagued our national security apparatus since the inception of the war on terror, and which has gained serious momentum over the last 12 months.

Some key observations:

The 86 page study [Get Full Report Here] reflects nothing so much as the product of multiculturally biased self-censorship - an unwillingness to pursue the obvious connections because of offending protected classes. As a result it's really hard to imagine this document being taken seriously anywhere outside of government. In this case "close enough for government work" doesn't work.

Major Hasan's case is unique - 12 soldiers were killed and dozens wounded, some very seriously, yet the emphasis in the study stresses prevention of all violence in general, including sexual predation, when dealing with Hasan's specific act and his motivational factors should be of prime focus.

Though the report is claimed to have been prepared independently, how can that be so? The over 100 team members [this is really a case of a horse being designed by committee] seem to be almost entirely military, defense establishment or related types. They are entirely too close to the problem, reducing whatever value their analysis might provide because bias under such circumstances is a reasonable concern.

The text of the analysis was clearly stripped of any possible reference that might in any way point to the religious motivation of the alleged perpetrator.

January 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - With the arrival, via the reliable al-Qaeda courier service al-Jazeera, of another warning from Osama bin-Laden occurring just a few days before Mr. Obama's first State of the Union Address, it's an opportune time consider just what al-Qaeda has been demanding from the United States as a condition for bin-Laden to call off the dogs of holy war.

Likewise an assessment of how successful this administration has been in understanding and dealing with the terrorist threat is in order.

Generally it has been the position of the left, subscribed to by Mr. Obama, that the current iteration of terrorism, rather than finding its genesis in an interpretation of Islamic theology, is in large part fueled by righteous enmity against the United States and the West caused by the way these comingled entities have historically dealt with the Muslim world.

It follows from this proposition that if the United States takes a more conciliatory approach, while at the same time helping to address the relative impoverishment that the overwhelming majority of Muslims must endure, that the defusing of these supposed root causes of radicalization will largely end that which motivates the jihadists.

Thus the origin of Mr. Obama's Muslim outreach, most forcefully detailed in his June 6, 2009 Cairo speech [see, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09/], with the below statement, emblematic of this approach.

"More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam. Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims."

It must be remembered that the Cairo speech was only part of a grander apologia - offered in a particularly supplicating manner - to atone for [what the president perceives to be] America's past history of oppressive actions.

Judging by the recent domestic al-Qaeda inspired attacks - Sgt. Hasan at Ft. Hood and Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab on Christmas day as well as the rapidly escalating violence in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama's efforts appear to have not only gained him nothing of a tangible nature but seem to have precipitated an increase in the type of activity the effort was supposed to ameliorate.

Osama Bin-Laden, through his terrorist organization al-Qaeda has a near 15 year history of delivering major threats to the United States. His first fatwa [an official judgment based upon Islamic law] was issued in 1996 [see, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html].

January 24, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The day was quite rainy, but not too cold. Though it may have discouraged a few people from coming, there were still an estimated 25,000 in attendance. Their presence attests to the staunch and determined Pro Life community willing to endure some discomforts to send a message to the elected officials of this state and country, that Pro Life people still have a conscience and intend to advance their cause.

I especially liked the comments of one 5th grade young man from Sacramento, there with his grandmother. He attends public school and often gets into trouble with his teachers and school officials he said, because he tries to tell his schoolmates that abortion kills babies.

The sight of hundreds of young parents with baby strollers, heavily protected from the elements, was encouraging. The many members of religious communities that were there from as far away as Los Angeles, was heartening along with groups of teenagers from Bakersfield and Modesto.

During a morning Mass held at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, there were as many as 8 Bishops presiding.

This day's event will be worth holding in memory when we are confronted with the reality of conflicted priests and religious who insist on supporting President Obama's health care program and, in fact, lending their names and their church's name to letter's in support of Obamacare.

It can be a discouragement to hear priests declare that they only support the health care delivery part of the agenda but declare that they make sure that groups like PICO and ACORN understand that they don't support that group's abortion agenda. One pro abortion protester said it almost right in a sign he carried. The sign said: "abortion is health care." Turn the words around and you see the truth - healthy care is abortion. Obama's plan for healthcare is the numbing of the mind and conscience which is why all legislators who support it must be rejected.

"Bo" from Folsom

This man, his wife, on the left, and a friend came from Modesto with about 300 others

Please take headline link for more images

January 23, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Not even constant showers which drenched many, could keep West Coast pro-life forces home today as tens of thousands streamed into San Francisco to bear witness to the personal, moral and societal damage caused by abortion.

Coalescing around the idea that Women Deserve Better, the 6th annual "Walk for Life" was by all accounts a successful demonstration that not even San Francisco, perhaps the most liberal city in America, could escape a call to public accountability over this serious issue.

With an estimated 23,000-25,000 braving the elements, young, old and in between gathered at the foot of Market St. at Justin Herman Plaza, scene of innumerable leftist demonstrations through the years. The mood was light yet reflective as an army of busses ferried the faithful to the site

Speakers at the event coming from as far away as Paris, France, delivered enthusiastic and uplifting speeches as the crowd huddled together to stay warm.

A two mile march to Crissy Field followed the rally, where, with the Golden Gate bridge as a backdrop, busses were waiting for the return trip to Northern California parishes.

Though most of those turning out were Catholic, numerous other faiths were also represented in this multidenominational, multiethnic outpouring of hope and concern. Counter-protesters were almost nonexistent and trouble was nil. Perhaps a dozen hard-core Stalinists were gathered nearby, obviously cowed by size of the pro-life crowd.

Amidst steadily falling public support for abortion, the ability of this growing movement to turn out so many willing to brave inclement weather should not have been that surprising, yet the sight of so many gathering today under these conditions sent a powerful message that the United States has come a long way back since the dark initial days after Roe vs. Wade countenanced this tragic procedure.

Please take headline link for more images

January 22, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - It's clear from recent Congressional testimony by the Obama administration's national security team, led by John Brennan Deputy National Security Advisor, that there was nothing that even approached a reasonably thorough interrogation of the Nigerian Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he was read his Miranda rights, allowing him to lawyer up, effectively silencing him.

Reading between the lines - not so difficult with this administration - it appears that the WH in conjunction with the DOJ simply made the decision on the matter - granting Abdulmuatllab the same rights which accrue to American citizens - only then informing the agencies which should have been consulted well before such a decision had been rendered.

That the need for an intensive interrogation of Abdulmutallab was required, should have been obvious to anyone even marginally well-versed in intelligence matters. With the bomber's well know direct links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, he could have provided vital intelligence - regarding most critically - the existence of further bombing plots. That information which now, due to this national security team's incompetence, we will never know.

The number of lives potentially threatened by this serious breach is impossible to gauge at this point, leaving the United States in a reactive, rather than aggressively pro-active , wide open for whatever lingering plans might still be operative.

Speaking to this spectacular intelligence failure Congressman Frank Wolf [R-VA] has addressed his concerns to Mr. Brennan, noting - unbelievably - that five months into the process, the administration is still refusing to provide lawmakers with any information regarding the profound changes that have been made to the previous interrogation policy, the one mind you that countenanced in the enhanced debriefing of KS Mohammed, revealing the existence of numerous ongoing terrorist plots.

January 21, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a remarkably powerful way the U.S. Supreme Court has struck a huge and far reaching blow in support of the First Amendment, overturning significant aspects of previous "campaign finance reform" legislation, declaring it unconstitutional.

The 5-4 Decision written by justice Kennedy struck down a key provision in McCain Feingold, the onerous legislation passed during GW Bush's first term, which many on the right considered unconstitutional at the time as well as the 1990 Austin decision.

The specific case deals with a campaign documentary generated by the non-profit Citizens United which was critical of then candidate Hillary Clinton.

The DC District Court decided against the plaintiff and from there it was appealed to the SCOTUS which today ruled in favor of Citizens, overturning the District Court decision.

In order to deal with the core issue - the ability of corporate entities to exercise free political speech - it was necessary for the decision to go farther than that however, "this case cannot be resolved on a narrower ground without chilling political speech, speech that is central to the First Amendment's meaning and purpose." [source, Citizens vs FEC, pg. 3]

In doing so the court overturned the 1990 ruling, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which held that prohibiting political speech by a corporation was constitutional..."This Court is confronted with conflicting lines of precedent: a pre-Austin line forbidding speech restrictions based on the speaker's corporate identity and a post-Austin line permitting them. Neither Austin's anti distortion rationale nor the Government's other justifications support...The First Amendment prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for engaging in political speech, but Austin's anti distortion rationale would permit the Government to ban political speech because the speaker is an association with a corporate form

January 20, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The realization had to come sooner or later, the signs were everywhere.

Congressmen running from town hall meetings as the Tea Party movement shattered the echo chambers from which they normally plied their trade.

The presence of a million angry people descending on the capitol steps in September, expressing outrage over the growing acquisitiveness of a state out of control.

The back-to-back losses in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections.

Even the completely tone deaf could have heard the shot reverberating across America from the heart of liberalism last night...right?

Nope, not even close.

Consider these comments made late last night and early this morning.

"I think that it would a terrible mistake to walk away now. If we don't pass the bill, all we have is the stigma of a caricature that was put on it. That would be the worst result for everybody who has supported this bill." - David Axelrod, Obama Sr. Advisor

"We will get the job done. I am confident of that. I have always been confident of that...Massachusetts has health care and so the rest of the country would like to have that too," Pelosi said, referring to the state's health care program. "So we don't [think] a state that already has health care should determine whether the rest of the country should." - Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House.

One might hope that this is all just false bravado, the defensive, nearly involuntary reaction one might expect after a quick succession of unexpected disasters.

But again...nope, not even close.

What has been demonstrated now over the space of nearly a year is that those running the Dem party - and this includes their critical funding/support structure in Soros fundies such as MoveOn - have taken collectivism into their bosoms so thoroughly that in a de-facto manner it has become their religion.

I had a vision...

The year was 303, the location Rome, the emperor Diocletian, Christians the target. It was in this period - before Constantine and his conversion - that persecution of the followers of Christ flourished in large public spectacles of unimaginable brutality.

Rather than submit, these believers would rather die, their faith inuring them to the whispers of the rational mind that temporal salvation lied in the mere rejection of their beliefs.

The apparation rippled, then once again came into focus...the year was 2010...the jailed and torn apart had become the masters.

Among this class a new priesthood of metaphysical jailers and torturers arose, this time refined, expensively coiffed and clad in Armanis.

The aching in their souls, that dark chasm into which most dare not look, still clawed from within, papered over now not with a salvific message, but with arrogance, they had become god unto themselves.

Instead of the ceremonial execution of theological dissidents, the soft persecution of total control loomed.

Such is the faith of Mr. Obama and his backers, they can't turn away from the abyss, even with the portents clear to all - perhaps even themselves - that destruction awaits.

Though the dream has broken, the image remains...then the revelation that while the faith given testimony to by the victims of Diocletian still flourishes today, gently guiding lives rightly, strengthening and providing hope, the counterfeit religion of utopianism has and will forever only resulted in misery and in its most extreme form, the deaths of tens of millions in the gulags of Siberia and the ovens of Buchenwald - a feat unattainable even by a Diocletian.

January 19, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - "It's time to stop just talking about education reform and start actually doing it. It's time to make education America's national mission." - President Barack Obama, November 4, 2009

With the coming of a new administration the G.W. Bush education reforms [the promotion of national educational standards - No Child Left Behind] are now history.

In their stead, "Race to The Top," is the current catch phrase for the legislation supporting the Obama administration's nationwide educational goals. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 [ARRA] provides about $100 billion for education K-12.

California's budget is in the red, its schools are being closed and teacher's jobs are being eliminated and the Governor has gone to Washington to plead the case for an infusion of federal funding.

California, New York and Florida [Texas, originally slated to participate, has withdrawn from the program, concerned over it's invasive nature] are now leading all states in the race to receive$350-700 million of the $4.5 billion available to these states in the federal Race To The Top K-12 program. [source, ContraCosta Times, http://www.caracetothetop.org/cs/rttt/print/htdocs/intent.htm]

Apparently it all hinges on the ability of these states to prove to the feds that they willchange and reform the their educational programs, models and testing standards toalign them with the Obama agenda.

Taking advantage of the current cash strapped economy, the Obama administration has succeeded indangling billions of our tax dollars in front of state and private sector businesses, in essence bribing them to submit to federal management of local employment and educational matters.

While these programs may have some ameliorative effect in the immediate future, the administration and it's communitarian supporters don't merely want immediate relief, additionally they seek permanent change bringing about greater federal oversight of the focus and outcome of education and job programs.

They plan to gain that power by taking over control of education. To firmly establish their communitarian goals they must gain control of input into the minds of children and out-of-work adults.

January 18, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In an item which has received far too little attention, we note once again how central Pakistan is to a successful effort in Afghanistan. This was unfortunately demonstrated - to tragic effect - on December 30 when Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, believed to be a Jordanian, detonated a powerful explosive device, killing 7 CIA operatives in Afghanistan's Khost region.

The precision with which the bombing was carried out and the type of explosive used points in the direction of outside assistance having been given to the operation, " The speculation about a possible ISI hand in the suicide attack is being traced back to U.S. and Afghan government sources who said in the analysis of explosives used, it was found they were of standard military grade which points to the ISI. [source, The Hindu, http://beta.thehindu.com/news/international/article79491.ece]

Downplaying the possibility of state level ISI players having been involved in the costly incident, Stratfor, a U.S. based intelligence think tank, however does not discount that lower level ISI operatives could have assisted the attack, "The possibility that jihadist sympathizers in the lower ranks of the Pakistani intelligence complex may have offered their services to the TTP cannot be ruled out, however. Given its history of dealing with Islamist nonstate proxies, the Pakistani intelligence apparatus is penetrated by the jihadists, which partially explains the ability of the TTP to mount a ferocious insurgency against the state." [source, Stratfor]

A video, obviously put together before the attack, but released thereafter, shows Balawi claiming credit for the bombing. Also in the video was new Pak Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud - his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, former Taliban leader, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in August.

Pakistan's ISI is widely understood to have been central to the rise of the Taliban, having given much aid throughout the 1990s. At one point, then prime minister Benazir Bhutto's government is believed to have provided funding for the group.

The ISI has also been implicated in other serious terrorist incidents including India's Mumbai bombing. As we reported in an October 1, 2006 piece [see, Musharraf's Pakistan Express Going Off The Rails - India Charges ISI With Collusion In Mumbai Bombing, https://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=mumbai100106.htm]

January 18, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Following close on the heels of the December kidnapping of Spanish aid workers in Northern Africa by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, we find another splinter group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, operating out of Yemen issuing a broad series of threats against the United States and Arab states hostile to the Salafist/jihadi movement.

"The duty of our Muslim nation is to declare jihad against the infidels and their agent helpers, not only on the ground, but in the sea and air as well as their Crusader warships in the Gulf of Aden," according to the statement. "As they declared it to be an open war on the people of Islam, we must declare an open war against [them]."

Though all of these groups are either loosely or more closely affiliated with the main branch of al-Qaeda, they have assumed distinctly local characters as they seek to take advantage of local conditions and populations in an effort to extend their reach, while frequently cross-pollinating, "Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM); AQIM is an offshoot of the Algerian Salafist Group for Combat and Preaching which declared allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2003." [source, Moroccoboard, http://www.moroccoboard.com/viewpoint/68-hassan-massiki/830-al-qaeda-in-the-islamic-maghreb]

January 17, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - President Obama stumping in Massachusetts today for floundering Dem Martha Coakley was completely taken off his game plan, and worse, off his teleprompter by the presence of a pro-life protester.

In the ensuing 5 minutes, while security hustled the individual out of the hall, the president seemed thoroughly confused, uncomfortable and unable to effectively deliver the speech he hoped would benefit Coakley's chances on Tuesday.

Below the video:

The incident served to unmask both the growing anger against team Obama as well as to expose the president as a bumbling, foolish looking pretender who appears to be incapable of defending his policies in the face of any criticism.

January 16, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a September 2008 stump speech, then candidate Barack Obama advocated the establishment of a national security force.

Since then various alternative media sources [the subject is radioactive as far as the MSM is concerned] have explored the meaning of Obama's words and what they might ultimately portend.

Below the relevant portion of the speech given July 2, 2008.

"Obama, July 2, Colorado Springs, CO: [As] president I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots [from 75,000] and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals, like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their effort connected to a common purpose.

People of all ages, stations and skills will be asked to serve. Because when it comes to the challenges we face, the American people are not the problem ? they are the answer. So we are going to send more college graduates to teach and mentor our young people. We'll call on Americans to join an energy corps, to conduct renewable energy and environmental clean-up projects in their neighborhoods all across the country.

We will enlist our veterans to find jobs and support for other vets, and to be there for our military families. And we're going to grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set.

We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. We need to use technology to connect people to service. We'll expand USA Freedom Corps to create online networks where American can browse opportunities to volunteer. You'll be able to search by category, time commitment and skill sets. You'll be able to rate service opportunities, build service networks, and create your own service pages to track your hours and activities.

This will empower more Americans to craft their own service agenda and make their own change from the bottom up."

[sources, Fact Check - almost always aligned to the left - http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_obama_planning_a_gestapo-like_civilian_national.html and the Wall Street Journal, which carried the campaign's pre-speech release, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/07/02/obamas-remarks-on-service/]

Obama delivering the controversial section of the speech below.

It seems fairly clear that what Obama was referring to - in laundry list manner - though dealing generally with domestic service, was directed at a civilian, but highly trained quasi-military force capable of being inserted into hot spots to handle law enforcement duties professionally so that the responsibility wouldn't have to fall on the over burdened military.

That seems a reasonable idea...however...

Recently [2009] the RAND think tank produced a monograph on the subject titled rather suggestively A Stability Police Force for the United States. Justification and Options for Creating U.S. Capabilities

The following section clearly envisions the possibility of such a force being used domestically, mentioning the Posse Comitatus Act which prohibits the military from carrying out domestic law enforcement. Actually the study mentions the Act 16 times.

"In particular, for theMP option to be as cost-effective as possible, relief from thePosse Comitatus Act would be required to permit its membersto perform domestic law enforcement functions."

The juxtaposing then of Mr. Obama's speech against the hard reality of the RAND study does indeed give pause for concern, not in the conspiratorial sense that some publications suggest, but from the standpoint of the potential misuse with which such a force might be used.

That is a question that requires the widest public scrutiny and public debate well before legislation might be considered.

January 16, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Martha Coakley, The Democrat candidate for "Ted Kennedy's" seat in the U.S. Senate continues to make a fool of herself whenever she is forced to answer questions of importance to the state's electorate.

In a January 14 interview conducted with WBSM's Ken Pittman, Coakley expressed a belief that healthcare workers have no right to the free exercise of their conscience

Please note the below video.

When people come together to discuss what has come to be called Obamacare, what often get's lost in the process is the understanding of just how injurious these proposed regulations are - aside from their obvious deleterious effect on the American healthcare system - to American civil liberties, a point to consider as Massachusetts voters go to the polls on Tuesday.

January 15, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In many ways the clash between Internet giant Google and the communist Chinese government is demonstrative of the administration's flawed foreign policy approach - walk and talk softly while brandishing an olive branch.

The matter front-and-center here involves a sophisticated Internet attack, taking place in mid December, launched against the prominent search engine with the apparent ultimate intent of accessing data on Chinese dissidents, housed on the company's Gmail servers. Upon investigation, the company discovered, alongside hacked email accounts, that a considerable amount of intellectual property had also been stolen.

At the same time as this was taking place, possibly as many as two dozen similar attacks were being launched against various other American companies doing business in the country, including defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman.

Initially Google challenged the Chinese to cease and desist its fishing operation, however in the face of the country's intransigence, the company stated that it would no longer comply with Chinese directives to filter content on the Google.cn web presence, and was willing to take the extreme step of closing its offices rather than subject itself to further predatory practices.

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

In throwing down this cyber-gauntlet, Google has admirably distinguished itself in this confrontation, first in the forthright manner with which it has admitted to having been targeted, and second, having responded in such a robust manner. Other companies have been reticent to even identify themselves as having been subject to these high-level hacks with G.M.'s China group president Kevin Wale indicating that the U.S. government owned company's appetite for such abuse was apparently endless, "They're not causing us any major impact at the moment." [source, Yahoo, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100113/ap_on_hi_te/as_china_google]

G.M.'s tepid response was strikingly similar to team Obama's - they now being cut from the same cloth.

About the threat she stated, "...but there is one challenge that you haven't been hearing about, because your government hasn't been informing you and that's the rise of homegrown radical extremism in our country. The Ft. Hood shooting brought it back into focus."

Congresswoman Myrick relied upon 4 respected terrorism experts to provide expertise in helping her understand the matter in depth, including Steven Emerson and Walid Phares.

January 5, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - It was with a certain amount of negative prejudgment that I recently screened Guy Ritchie's new work, Sherlock Holmes, with our Cultural Editor having warned me that the movie, was good but could have gone straight to DVD.

With that in mind, it was surprising then to see the story rendered so flawlessly, updated rather tastefully for a modern audience not accustomed to the dour, turgid presence of Basil Rathbone and comical antics of Nigel Bruce as Watson, circa the 1930s.

The plot, though perhaps overreaching [arch villain Lord Blackwood seeks to dominate the world through feigned magical powers] serves to showcase the characters and provide motivation for the substantial departure the writers [Michael Robert Johnson and Anthony Peckham, Simon Kinberg] have taken from the original.

Starring Robert Downey Jr., as Sherlock Holmes, Jude Law as Dr. John Watson, Rachel McAdams as the femme fatale Irene Adler and Mark Strong as Lord Blackwood the roles are perfectly cast for the quirky moodiness of the work, which sees Holmes a troubled but brilliant savant on a mission to save the world and Watson his steady companion and foil, albeit one over fond of gambling and skilled in the art of avoiding marriage.

In supporting roles, Downey's antagonist/love interest is believably gravitates between sexy and vulnerable seasoned with a considerable does of steel. The scene where she menacingly cracks walnuts in one hand being one of many deft touches to her character and the film in general. Strong is well cast as thin-shouldered, vaguely vampire-ish Lord Blackwood and he proves himself at ease in evoking the sense of cruel coldness appropriate for a wannabe master of the world.

The cinematography is superlative, verging on stunning in some instances and far better than one might expect in what has been variously and incorrectly characterized as a formulaic set-piece. The blocking of scenes is flawless and camera angles were well chosen, leaving the action framed in such a manner as to subtly enhance the story.

The colors, tones and the use of light and darkness are also a cut above. London of the 1870s is beautifully [if almost mournfully] rendered; all the hustle characterizing the grandeur, the peak if you will of the British empire set against dank brownstones lit by an omnipresent and oppressive sepia tinged sky. The interiors are fittingly moody and appropriately lit, with a hint of foreboding and doom.

And now for a contrasting view, please take headline links on both pieces for complete reviews.

January 5, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - It isn't often I review currently running movies. Personally, I feel a good movie, or any movie for that matter must simmer on the back of one's mind, gestating amid reflections both conscious and sub-conscious, until a proper opinion can be properly birthed.

Such was to be the case concerning the release and review of Madonna's ex Director Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and his?what is the word?remake? No that's not it. Ah yes, blasphemy of the beloved Sherlock Holmes genre. Events beyond my control force an early hand.

I speak of genre as at the heart, a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, either in print or IMAXed film is first and foremost a mystery tale.

Or it should be.

The currently running movie well cast and starring Robert Downey Jr. [Chaplin, Iron Man] hits most of the marks on cue, classical elements of a Holmes mystery. Downey's earlier work in portraying Charlie Chaplin allowed him the ability to slip into the accent easily and in the end one of the reasons Ritchie abandoned his search for a younger Holmes and went with Downey.

Someone should have reminded Ritchie that they already did "Young Sherlock Holmes" a few years ago.

The problem is, despite the skilled work by Downey, his attempt to add some credibility to the Holmes character itself got in the way of the special effects, and farciflul plot. They seemed more obligatory than central.

Certainly Downey managed to work in his "elementary" deductions, however, in my opinion Director Guy Ritchie treated them as elementary school.

January 4, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On New Years' Eve, Bill Ayers, the unapologetic Weather Underground domestic terrorist who launched Barack Obama's political career, his wife, the equally notorious Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn, Jodie Evans - Code Pink bigwig and a major Democrat Party funder with over 22k in donations reported to the FEC in 2009 - and a gaggle of other Jew hating leftist bigots gathered in front of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to join in solidarity with the terrorist group Hamas.

In a December 31 posting to a weblog [see, http://www.theittlist.com/ittlist/ind/gaza_freedom_march_dispatch_3] Ayers wrote, "The GFM wanted to enter Gaza 1,400 strong to express solidarity with civil society, witness their struggle for survival and self-determination, and join in a massive peace march."

"Civil society" in this case being that fostered by Hamas in Gaza.

Protest observers said the crowd numbered less than 500, far below the organizers' rather generous estimate.

The event was so beyond the pale that Egyptian authorities decided to break it up in a manner befitting a totalitarian Middle Eastern Islamic state, "Members of the Gaza Freedom March are being forcibly detained in hotels around town as well as violently forced into pens in Tahir Square by Egyptian police and additional security forces. Reports of police brutality are flooding a delegate legal hotline faster than the legal support team can answer the calls. The reports span from women being kicked, beaten to the ground and dragged into pens, at least one confirmed account of broken ribs, and many left bloody." [from GAF PR blurb, see http://www.france24.com/en/20091231-foreign-activists-hold-freedom-march-protest-against-israeli-blockade-gaza-closure]

January 4, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Well in advance of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's fortunately truncated Christmas Day terrorist attack on Northwestern flight #253, in an October 2, 2009 piece [see, Congressman Frank Wolf Demands GITMO Terrorists Not Be Sent To Unstable Countries] we drew attention to the critical breach of national security the Obama administration had created via its policy of releasing GITMO detainees, many of whom were gathered on the battlefield as mujahideen, back to their countries of origin, including Yemen, home of a newly resurgent al-Qaeda.

For months now, Obama's ruinous amateur hour repatriation program has been slammed by a small coterie of national security hawks in the House of Representatives, led by Frank Wolf:

"Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) today urged the Obama Administration to reconsider sending detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to unstable countries such as Yemen, Afghanistan or Algeria.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Wolf wrote that the administration should halt all transfers until "evidence is provided to this Congress demonstrating that the detainee can be properly received and monitored in the receiving country."

Wolf, the top Republican on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department, cited a number of recent press reports detailing the deteriorating security situation in Yemen, including a piece in this week's Time magazine, headlined, "Is Yemen the Next Afghanistan?", as the reason for asking for any transfers to be stopped."

Throughout this time and despite numerous requests for information, Obama, Eric Holder and the Dept. of Justice have stonewalled all attempts made by Congress to determine the extent and the degree of threat repatriation represents.

We call upon the administration to immediately halt this injurious program and suggest that a full review by Congress, as part of their oversight responsibility, is in order to determine how deeply this long standing policy has damaged the national security interests of the United States.

March 23, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Last week's rally of patriots outside of the 11th district office of Jerry McNerney [D-CA] was impressive...the counter rally was quite small by comparison. At first, it seemed to be the other way around, with supporters of the embattled Congressman showing up early, but as time went on more and more Tea Party people showed up, finally demonstrating an at least 3-1 advantage.

Right on schedule at 5pm the protesters marched to the nearby highway 580 overpass leaving the Obama/McNerney supporters behind and a bit bewildered as to what was happening, finding themselves alone in front of the Congressman's office.

The protest crowd stretched out for hundreds of yards, dwarfing the opposition. Local law enforcement and the California Highway Patrol blocked off some freeway exits, allowing the march to proceed in a safer manner - kudos to our Thin Blue Line

The crowd then split into two groups on opposite sides of the freeway, with the Obama supporters trailing behind, seemingly confused as to what to do, lending a comical aside to the event. In short order the fair weather supporters marched off to home with theTea Partiers waving them farewell.

Local media including KTVU and the CBS affiliate moved among the crowd shooting video and conducting interviews.

The Tea Party protesters carried numerous American flags along with large banners that could be read from the freeway below. Judging by the responsive honking by passing autos, there seemed to be a lot of affinity with the protest among the commute traffic.

With the onset of the Obamacare sleight-of-hand healthcare "debate" Jerry McNerney has refused to confront critical constituents face to face. His office's response today was more of the same.

Clinton Judge - James Robertson - Set to Free Top Al-Qaeda Terrorist

March 23, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a GITMO detainee, is believed to have been integral to the 9/11 terror attacks, working closely with Mohammed Atta in Germany.

On Monday a Clinton judge, James Robertson - DC District - granted Slahi a petition for habeas corpus, clearing the way for freeing him.

Slahi has been described as being the detainee of most value at GITMO, deeply knowledgeable in the details of al-Qaeda terror methods.

The ruling was classified and is not available to the public.

Slahi was known to European intelligence for years before the events of September 11 to be a significant player in the Islamic terror network:

"When they later called Masri and expressed interest in going to Chechnya, he told them to contact Abu Musab in Duisburg, Germany. Abu Musab turned out to be Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a significant al Qaeda operative who, even then, was well known to U.S. and German intelligence, though neither government apparently knew he was operating in Germany in late 1999.When telephoned by Binalshibh and Shehhi, Slahi reportedly invited these promising recruits to come see him in Duisburg...Slahi instructed them to obtain Pakistani visas and then return to him for further directions on how to reach Afghanistan.Although Atta did not attend the meeting, he joined in the plan with the other three. After obtaining the necessary visas, they received Slahi's final instructions on how to travel to Karachi and then Quetta, where they were to contact someone named Umar al Masri at the Taliban office..."

The prospect of releasing Slahi, whose offenses qualified him for the death penalty if he had been correctly tried before a military tribunal, should prove unsettling to all while increasing public mistrust of team Obama's approach to national security matters, especially regarding Islamic terrorism.

UK Muslim News "Awards for Excellence" Lauded by PM and Other Politicians

By BEILA RABINOWITZ

March 22, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLinenews.org - According to the Muslim News, about 800 people recently gathered together for "The Muslim News Awards for Excellence" supposedly to recognize Muslim contributions to British society. Unbelievably a special award was presented to Dr. Gill Hicks who founded,"Making a Difference for Peace" an organization she created after losing both of her legs as a result of the 2005 London terror bombings. [source,http://www.iina.me/english/news.php?go=fullnews&newsid=148]

Apparently the perverse act of bestowing a Muslim News Award for Excellence on the double amputee victim of a Muslim terror attack was lost on the politicians present.

Other politicians such as liberal democratic leader Nick Clegg and Opposition leader David Cameron sent laudatory messages. Among those attending were Communities Secretary John Denham and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling.

The UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson was the guest of honor at the event and had this to say, "The Muslim News Awards are an excellent opportunity to celebrate the fantastic contribution that British Muslims across the country make to the UK."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a message which, "described The Muslim News Awards for Excellence as a 'firmly established premier occasion for marking the achievements of both Muslims and non-Muslims working together for the common good and for highlighting the important role Muslims play in our communities.'"

The organizer of the event was Ahmed Versi who is the editor and publisher of the Muslim News. Versi is a Islamist who has long championed radical causes. A profile of him on the Muslim Council of Britain website (the MCB has been likened to CAIR).

According to the site, "Versi has high hopes for the young Muslims of Britain whom he considers to have responded in a civilised manner despite considerable provocation...In the last decade or so, British Muslims have seen their Prophet and religion being continuously vilified without any recourse to law; they have suffered in the West by attacks on them because of domestic and international events, discrimination and exclusion at home; they have seen the suffering of Muslims in different parts of the world yet the young Muslims in the United Kingdom have never opted for violent measures. [source, http://www.mcb.org.uk/features/features.php?ann_id=442]

Mr. Versi's statement apparently failed to take note of the extraordinary irony of recognizing Dr. Hicks for an action she took after her legs were blown off by young UK Muslims.

The accolades given to the Muslim News Awards for Excellence by leading UK politicians is further proof of how far the Islamist world view has permeated official British policy. Having a terror victim as the main awardee of an event which was intended to show "the very best of Muslim contribution to British society" speaks for itself.

Team Obama Continues Myth of Pakistan's Commitment to War on Terror

March 22, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Despite much evidence pointing to the fallacy underlying the administration's conclusion, Secty of State Clinton has congratulated the Pakistanis on the eve of their "National Day," March 23 for their alleged diligence in the war on terror, "Today, your country is suffering from terrorism and your security forces and civilians are making great sacrifices to fight extremists. The people of the United States will stand by and support Pakistani efforts to build a peaceful and prosperous future. We wish you a happy Pakistan Day." [source, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/03/138530.htm]

This administration has not been alone in perpetuating the myth that Pakistan and the West share similar goals in battling the Islamic jihad , with the Bush team continually praising Pakistan for its anti-terror actions even while under Musharraf the country was busily signing peace treaties with the Taliban and by extension their al-Qaeda allies:

"President Pervez Musharraf has failed to prevent Pakistan from handing over territory to the Taliban, this time to a group called the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws. On March 17, a Pakistani "peace" committee struck a verbal agreement with the Mohmand tribe, under which the government promised to cease military activity in Bajaur in exchange for the tribe's promise not to shelter "foreigners" or allow cross-border attacks into Afghanistan." [source, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/457rzpvh.asp]

Injecting a bit of objectivity in the matter is today's Lebanon Daily Star:

Although Pakistan's propaganda machine often asserts that Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Kashmiri organization that is moved by the Kashmiri cause, it is in fact nothing of the sort. The 3,000-odd foot soldiers who make up its fighting cadre are drawn primarily from the Pakistani Punjab. India's intelligence services today estimate that Lashkar-e-Taiba maintains some kind of presence in 21 countries worldwide with the intention of supporting or participating in what its leader, Hafeez Saeed, has called the perpetual "jihad against the infidels." Consequently, Lashkar-e-Taiba's operations in and around India, which often receive the most attention, are only part of a larger campaign that has taken Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives and soldiers as far afield as Australia, Canada, Chechnya, China, Eritrea, Kosovo, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the UK, and even the US. [source, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=112997]

Numerous pieces appearing on these pages have drawn similar conclusions [see for example Pakistan's ISI Intelligence Service Implicated In Afghanistan CIA Bomb Attack] leading to the conclusion that until the relationship between Pakistan's ISI and terrorist groups [especially the Taliban and Lashkar e-Taiba] is broken there can be no reasonable expectation that Pakistan will not continue to drift towards a Taliban style Islamic theocracy with nuclear weapons at its fingertips.

David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy in Mumbai and Denmark Terror Plots

March 18, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - - Headley, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, pleaded guilty today to a dozen federal terrorism charges today including participation in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and an attack on a Danish newspaper that had published allegedly anti-Islamic cartoons.

Headley had been trained by the terrorist group Lashkar e Tayyib in Pakistan, where he learned the skills necessary to gather intelligence on the Mumbai target, which he admitted to doing on five extended reconnaissance trips.

Headley's guilty plea was part of a plea bargain which in addition to other cooperation given to federal investigators, allowed him to escape the death penalty for his actions.

The terrorist's sentencing has been delayed until authorities have been assured that he has fully revealed the full extent of his knowledge of the terror network.

The Mumbai attacks started on Nov. 26, 2008, continuing through Nov. 28 and involved 10 terrorists armed with firearms, grenades and IEDs which were directed against premiere tourist spots including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, the Leopold Café, the Chabad House and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station.

A total of 164 were killed, including American Jewish victims and hundreds more were wounded.

Moroccan Thugs Terrorize Dutch City

By WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ

March 18, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Almost a million of Holland's 16 million population are Muslims - the majority coming from Africa [primarily Morocco and Somalia] and Turkey. Over 50% of the residents of Amsterdam are non-native Dutch and some areas of the city are 70% foreign born.

In the 1960s when the "special relationship" with Morocco was forged [primarily a glorified guest-worker concept] Holland's free thinkers supported a system of reparations in-kind, offered as partial atonement for the supposed sins of Dutch colonialism. The prevailing belief being that Dutch expansion/exploration had impacted North Africa negatively and it was far past time to address that perceived injustice.

Since then, often aided by bellicose foreign-born radical imams, young Moroccan men have been involved in criminal activity at a rate exponentially above their numbers in the general population.

In the latest incident, a case of vicious street crime, a youth from Veenendaal [located in central Holland near Utrecht] was beaten, robbed, partially stripped and laid across a set of railroad tracks by members of a Moroccan gang. The event was part of a crime wave in the city that has seen the mayor advising city residents to stay off the streets at night because the police couldn't protect them.

Other Dutch towns have suffered a similar fate with the mayor of Zaltbommel having received death threats after speaking out against the violence. Similar incidents have happened in the neighboring towns of Gouda and Utrecht, again perpetrated by young Moroccan hoods.

Netanyahu's Brother-in-Law: Obama's an Anti-Semite

March 17, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Speaking where few dare go, yesterday in a series of interviews Dr. Hagai Ben-Artz, Binyamin Netanyahu's brother-in-law, charged president Obama with being an anti-Semite.

Ben-Artz, quoted in Arutz Sheva, stated, "the time has come to tell the truth - we are talking about an anti-Semite...We Jews are a people from nearly 4,000 years ago. In another year, you [Obama] will disappear. Who will remember you?" [source, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136571]

Netanyahu's brother-in-law was also highly critical of the president's long-time pastor, Reverend Wright claiming in an interview with IDF Radio that the controversial church leader was, "anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic." [source, ibid]

Tensions between the United States and Israel have seldom been this strained. The most recent provocation took place last week with vice-president Biden's meddling in the politics of Jerusalem ["I condemn the decision" to build additional housing in East Jerusalem] followed by Secty of State Clinton's "blistering" [John Bolton's words, see - http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Clinton-Vents-Frustration-Over-Israeli-Jerusalem-Move-in-Call-to-Netanyahu-87493047.html] telephone conversation on the same matter with the Israeli PM.

Critical observers of the growing rift between the two former allies place blame squarely with president Obama, who is now widely believed to be punishing what used to be America's most trusted Middle East ally for the sake of currying favor with the radical Muslim world.

AP Discovers Civilizational Conflict Between the West and Islam

By WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ

March 16, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - When even the pedantically leftist AP takes note of the "growing unease," with which Europeans view their burgeoning Muslim populations, there must be considerable fire behind the smoke. [see, Culture clash: European art provokes Muslims, http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16029/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Ndcy9Xih]

At issue here is the central question in the culture clash between the West and Islam - at what point does our tradition of laissez faire liberalism - especially when it comes to accommodating alien and often antagonistic cultures - become a suicide pact?

Such questions are faced on a daily basis in both Europe and North America where similar migrations of primarily Third World individuals have often chosen not to become acculturated to their new surroundings.

On the Continent, France seems to have the most pressing problem with nearly 10% of its population being Muslim. Crammed - by choice and design - into segregated neighborhoods, these communities have been the scene of numerous violent Intifada type riots involving hundreds of participants.

"Six North Paris municipalities are burning, victim of an increasingly violent Intifada style uprising in Muslim immigrant communities that had its start two years ago and has been simmering ever since, this time flaring up over a traffic accident in which two immigrant youths on a speeding motorcycle were killed in a collision with a police car."

[see, Muslims Riot In France - Shades Of The Intifada - What The MSM Doesn't Want You To Know, https://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=france11.28.07%2Ehtm]

With its citizenry having reached the saturation point regarding the increasing stridency of Muslim demands for accommodation, France has embarked on an active push-back, seriously considering the banning of face coverings [niqab or burqa] after having earlier banned hijab [head scarves] in settings such as classrooms.

England, home to approximately 1.6M Muslims, has in many ways fared worse than France in this confrontation, having in large part capitulated to the adherents of Shari'a, even to the extent of creating a dual justice system allowing family matters among Muslims to be adjudicated in Shari'a courts. [see UK's Shari'a Court System Metastasizing At Exponential Rat, https://www.pipelinenews.org/2009/UKs-Sharia-Court-System-Metastasizing-At-Exponential.html]

Despite a continent-wide effort to placate its Muslim population - agreeing to a level of accommodation that would have been unimaginable a relatively few years ago - Europe's graciousness has been repaid with more demands accompanied by jihadist violence.

A few examples:

This January an axe wielding Somali with ties to al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab Mujahideen invaded the home of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard who had drawn a satirical cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. Westergaard saved himself by retreating into a "panic room." The attacker turned on the police before being shot and subdued. [see, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6973966.ece]

Last week seven were arrested in Ireland [one since released] and one in Philadelphia, alleged to have been plotting to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Wilks, who had depicted Mohammed's head on the body of a dog. [see, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0310/Jihad-Jane-alleged-target-Lars-Vilks-I-have-an-ax-here]

In July 2009 three Muslims were jailed in the UK for perpetrating an arson attack on the home of a publisher of a book on Aisha, the child bride of Muhammad. They poured diesel fuel through the letter box and set it afire.[see, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8139076.stm]

In 2005 Flemming Rose, the editor of the Danish newspaper the Jyllands Posten, published twelve cartoons depicting Mohammed. Both he and the cartoonists receiving a blizzard of death threats . [see, http://www.meforum.org/1758/naser-khader-and-flemming-rose-reflections-on]

Indicative of the great lengths to which Europeans have gone in order to accede to the demands of the Islamists, in 2008 Dutch police arrested the cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot after a complaint by a radical Dutch imam. Authorities charged that he was "publishing cartoons which are discriminating for Muslims and people with brown skin." Nekschot [a pseudonym] was told by the police that he had "lost his anonymity." Both the cartoonist and his publisher received death threats as a result of running the allegedly defamatory works. [see, http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3257]

Whatever push-back against this intolerance exists, is coming at the hands of a few rogue politicians backed by overwhelming popular sentiment, in Holland the rise of Geert Wilders is due to largely to this phenomenon.

Despite AP's noting of the challenge to Western traditional political thought posed by these events, they of course present it in the peculiar way that observers of AP have grown accustomed, essentially saying that violating Muslim sensibilities through non-Shari'a compliant acts is tantamount to incitement.

"With the West locked in conflicts across the Muslim world, why would anyone throw fuel on the fire?"

[source, http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16029/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Ndcy9Xih] The piece concludes, "'I wonder whether the liberal order is really quite so weak and inept, whether the story is quite over just yet,' Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote in one review." [source, ibid]

What the mavens in AP and big media in general either fail to realize or - more believably - simply ignore for the sake of politics, is that this is genuinely a clash of civilizations [in the full sense that Samuel Huntington wrote about in 1993, see, http://history.club.fatih.edu.tr/103%20Huntington%20Clash%20of%20Civilizations%20full%20text.htm] - one liberal and devoted, to greater or lesser degrees, personal and religious freedom and the other ossified, often barbaric that is not at all interested in assimilation but rather in dominion.

Given Europe's recent history of lassitude it is by no means clear that Western civilization has the remaining vitality needed to resist such a clever assault. If America's predicament is not yet that dire it is certainly not because our leaders have learned from the experience of their brothers in the First World.

March 11, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - According to an Israeli news report, a number of Hispanic activists are visiting Israel on a trip sponsored by the American Jewish Committee's Project Interchange.

Some of these guests of the AJC are members of the controversial group La Raza.

The National Council of La Raza [National Council of The Race] is primarily a left-wing organization which advocates Hispanic racial supremacy, undermining counter terrorism efforts in the United States through its advocacy of illegal immigration. The NCLR also has reportedly funded MEChA in the past, a virulently anti-Semitic group which is working towards making the American Southwest into a Hispanic nation - under foreign control.

"Twelve of America's most prominent Latina [Latin American female] leaders are currently visiting Israel for intensive dialogue and briefings...The Project Interchange seminar will run through March 14 and was organized in cooperation with the AJC Latino and Latin American Institute and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR)."

[source,http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136424]

Discover the Networks highlights La Raza's radical nature:

" La Raza supports continued mass Mexican immigration to the United States, and hopes to achieve...the re-partition of the American Southwest as a new state called Aztlan - to be controlled by its alleged rightful owners, the people and government of Mexico "

Reflecting the high level of participation by La Raza, one of the participants in the AJC sponsored effort is the CEO of La Raza, Janet Murguia.

According to an investigative article titled 'The Truth About La Raza,'"Key among the secondary organizations is the...Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West...as recently as 2003, La Raza was actively funding MEChA, according to federal tax records." [source http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=13863]

In demonstrating the close relationship between La Raza and anti- Semitism, the MEChA connection is ominous.

"MEChA has in the past been associated with anti-Semitic sentiments and groups. A 1998 MEChA youth conference at California Polytechnic State University featured a printed program that introduced the school as "Cal Poly State Jewniversity." The program also referred to New York as "Jew York MEChA has also been linked to La Voz de Aztlán (The Voice of Aztlan), a Chicano webzine that regularly publishes articles attacking Jews, Zionism, and Israel."

The American Jewish Committee has a history of teaming up with sketchy, oft-times anti-American and even anti-Jewish organizations. In a previous PipeLineNews.org piece, Jews for Jihad ? How the American Jewish Committee Aids and Abets Islamists, the organization was singled out for working with radical Islamic groups.

"The AJC's Coalition for Interreligious Learning is also working together with IQRA and the International Educational Foundation - an international source of Wahhabist propaganda which disseminates DVD's such as "Why the West is Coming to Islam," and books like "Sacred Law in Secular Lands" by Abdullah Bin Bayyah - a radical Islamist cleric who is cited as a source of spiritual inspiration by jihadist website..."

[source, https://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=jewishjihad.htm

Despite this record of questionable alliances, as noted on its website, one of the AJC's "key areas of focus" still lists, "combating anti- Semitism and all forms of bigotry," as an important part of its mission statement. [source, http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.789093/k.124/Who_We_Are.htm]

Such a mandate does not befit the AJC's new working relationship with La Raza, which finds the group once again operating at cross- purposes with legitimate Jewish interests, dispensing undeserved legitimacy to an organization which seeks to radically change the United States, consequently damaging the cause the AJC desires to champion.

In Bipartisan Move House Adopts GOP Call to Investigate Eric Massa

March 11, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Responding to an increasing sense of urgency spawned by the rapidly escalating public disapproval with the Obama administration and Democrat Congressional leadership, the House has just overwhelmingly and in a bipartisan manner adopted Minority Leader Boehner's resolution to institute a full ethics probe of disgraced congressman Eric Massa.

Speaking for the GOP, Mr. Boehner stated, "The resolution that passed the House with a strong bipartisan majority today is a clear signal that an investigation to examine and answer the very serious questions arising from Democratic Leaders' response to their former colleague's conduct is necessary. These questions must be answered to begin repairing the broken bonds of trust between the Congress and the American people. We all have a responsibility to rise above politics and do what's right for the institution of the House.

Highlighting the growing Democrat ethical scandal, Boehner adder, "Speaker Pelosi once promised the American people 'the most open and ethical' Congress in history, but she has broken that promise. Yesterday, the House Ethics committee ended an investigation of former-Rep. Eric Massa. A few hours later, the Speaker revealed that her staff had reports of his troubling behavior months ago, but apparently failed to act. As the Ethics Committee made clear when it admonished former Chairman Rangel last week, Members of the House are responsible for the actions of their staff. The clear standards established after 2006  with the Speaker's strong support - demand this investigation. The American people deserve to know the truth."

March 11, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Today, GOP Minority Leader Boehner introduced a resolution calling for a complete ethics investigation of Eric Massa [D, NY].Key in this investigation is when did House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi become aware of Massa's alleged sexual harassment of House staff, including possibly young male pages.The resolution reads:

"

"Raising a question of the privileges of the House.

Whereas, on March 8, 2010, Representative Eric Massa resigned from the House;

Whereas, numerous newspapers and other media organizations reported in the days before and after Mr. Massa's resignation that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct was investigating allegations that Mr. Massa sexually harassed Members of his congressional staff;

Whereas, on March 3, 2010, Majority Leader Hoyer's office issued a statement saying, "The week of February 8th, a member of Rep. Massa's staff brought to the attention of Mr. Hoyer's staff allegations of misconduct that had been made against Mr. Massa. Mr. Hoyer's staff immediately informed him of what they had been told";

Whereas, on Thursday, March 4, Roll Call newspaper reported, "Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she only learned Wednesday of misconduct allegations against freshman Rep. Eric Massa, though her staff had learned of it earlier and decided against briefing her. 'There had been a rumor, but just that,' Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference. 'A one-, two-, three-person rumor that had been reported to Mr. Hoyer's office and reported to my staff which they did not report to me because you know what? This is rumor city. There are rumors.'";

Whereas, on March 11, 2010, The Washington Post reported, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office was notified in October by then-Rep. Eric Massa's top aide [Joe Racalto] of concerns about the New York Democrat's behavior";

Whereas, on March 11, 2010, Politico newspaper reported, "Democratic insiders say Pelosi's office took no action after Racalto expressed his concerns about his then-boss in October";

Whereas, on March 9, 2010, The Corning Leader newspaper reported, "Hoyer said last week he told Massa to inform the House Ethics Committee of the charges within 48 hours. 'Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me, never, not once, not a word,' Massa said Sunday. 'This is a lie. It is a blatant false statement.'";

Whereas, numerous confusing and conflicting media reports that House Democratic leaders knew about, and may have failed to handle appropriately, allegations that Rep. Massa was sexually harassing his own employees have raised serious and legitimate questions about what Speaker Pelosi as well as other Democratic leaders and their respective staffs were told, and what those individuals did with the information in their possession;

Whereas, the aforementioned media accounts have held the House up to public ridicule;

Whereas, the possibility that House Democratic leaders may have failed to immediately confront Rep. Massa about allegations of sexual harassment may have exposed employees and interns of Rep. Massa to continued harassment;

Whereas, clause one of Rule XXXIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, titled "Code of Conduct," states "A Member, Delegate, Resident Commission, officer, or employee of the House shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House";

Whereas, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is charged under House Rules with enforcing the Code of Conduct;

Therefore, be it RESOLVED,

(1) The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is directed to investigate fully, pursuant to clause 3(a)(2) of House Rule XI, which House Democratic leaders and members of their respective staffs had knowledge prior to March 3, 2010 of the aforementioned allegations concerning Mr. Massa, and what actions each leader and staffer having any such knowledge took after learning of the allegations;

(2) Within ten days following adoption of this resolution, and pursuant to Committee on Standards of Official Conduct rule 19, the committee shall establish an Investigative Subcommittee in the aforementioned matter, or report to the House no later than the final day of that period the reasons for its failure to do so;

(3) All Members and staff are instructed to cooperate fully in the committee's investigation and to preserve all records, electronic or otherwise, that may bear on the subject of this investigation;

(4) The Chief Administrative Officer shall immediately take all steps necessary to secure and prevent the alteration or deletion of any e-mails, text messages, voicemails and other electronic records resident on House equipment that have been sent or received by the Members and staff who are the subjects of the investigation authorized under this resolution until advised by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct that it has no need of any portion of said records; and,

(5) The Committee shall issue a final report of its findings and recommendations in this matter no later than June 30, 2010."

March 10, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a federal indictment unsealed today, Pennsylvania resident Colleen Renee LaRose [aka Fatima LaRose] has been arrested upon suspicion that she was attempting to provide material aid to Islamic terrorists and that she allegedly traveled to Sweden to carry out an attack against a perceived anti-Muslim cartoonist.

It is believed that LaRose's target was Lars Vilks, a controversial Swedish cartoonist who had already been threatened with death by al-Qaeda.

"The indictment charges that American citizen LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators (located in South Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the United States) recruited men on the Internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad...further charges that LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators used the Internet...in order to wage violent jihad....In addition, according to the indictment, LaRose received a direct order to kill a citizen and resident of Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten 'the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world.'..LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend in while carrying out her plans. According to the indictment, LaRose traveled to Europe and tracked the intended target online in an effort to complete her task..."

Recruiting of jihadists who do not fit the normal Arabic male profile has long been a goal of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and LaRose seems to be evidence that goal has been attained.

Obama Admin Sides With Terrorist Abbas in Jerusalem Building Row

March 11, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Visiting Israel apparently with the sole intention of further damaging relations between the Jewish state and team Obama, Joe Biden yesterday sided with Pale Authority terrorist in chief Mahmoud Abbas in a concocted dispute with Israel over the building of housing units in Ramat Shlomo an Orthodox religious community in northeast Jerusalem.

Clearly demonstrating the administrations tilt towards the radical Palestinian position, Biden charged Israel with inflaming tensions, "As we move forward, the United States will hold both sides accountable for any statements or actions that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks, as this decision did," directly after meeting with Abbas.

Taking their cue from the vice president's actions, the Palestinians immediately broke off the current round of peace talks with Israel.

Tom Campbell Outed Again As Phony Conservative

March 9, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Tom Campbell, the Democrat's idea of a wet dream phony conservative candidate for CA Senator, has been outed by Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism [IPT] as having continued to actively support fundraiser Sami Al-Arian even after the now confessed terrorist - having admitted providing "services" for Palestinian Islamic Jihad - was under investigation.

Sending a very strong signal at the time that Al-Arian might have been a tainted personality, his close associate [and brother-in-law] Mazen al-Najjar had been revealed in court proceedings as being a ""threat to national security."

"...He [al-Najjar] was a founding member - along with Sami Al-Arian, Khalil Shikaki, and Ramadan Abdullah Shallah - of the World Islam Study Enterprise (WISE), which was shut down in 1995 for its suspected ties to terrorism... On June 6, 1997, Immigration Judge R. Kevin McHugh denied al Najjar's bail request after reviewing classified evidence furnished by the government. In a one-sentence summary, McHugh stated that al Najjar was "associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a threat to national security."

During this period of time numerous media sources had done exposes on Al-Arian's radicalism, including NBC's Dateline which featured a clip of Al-Arian calling Jews "monkeys" and "pigs" and advocating the "death of Israel."

Yet with all of this as backdrop and after a $1,300 contribution by Al-Arian to Campbell's 2000 campaign, he authored legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to bar exactly the kind of evidence that linked al-Najjar and later Al-Arian to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

In a letter first obtained by the IPT, Campbell is seen hectoring University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft [See Full IPT report here] - [View IPT Campbell letter here] to reinstate Al-Arian despite the considerable evidence already in the public record casting doubts on Al-Arian's self-righteous and false claims of innocence.

Now locked in a tough California Senate primary [after fleeing the gubernatorial race] Campbell at first denied that Al-Arian had contributed to his campaign, until forced to admit it was true. Then he claimed he no longer had a copy of the letter he wrote supporting Al-Arian to USF, finally being chagrined once again when IPT published it in full.

With former University of South Florida professor Al-Arian currently under house arrest, awaiting contempt of court charges after having voluntarily accepted deportation, perhaps observant California voters have finally been given a sufficient glimpse of Campbell's lack of character, duplicity and phony conservatism, all of which disqualify him to represent the GOP in any capacity.

Gates Cautious In Afghan Meetings

March 8, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On a day which featured a suicide bombing attempt and gun battle in the Eastern Afghan town of Khost, U.S. Secty of Defense Gates made his first post-surge visit to the troubled country.

Appearing at a joint media event with president Karzai, Gates warned of tough times and "dark days" as the struggle to defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban escalates saying, "There is still much fighting ahead, and there will assuredly be some dark days. But looking forward there are grounds for optimism..." [source, Al Jazeera, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201038181835654228.html]

Gates also met with the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who refused to apply a timetable to the pushback operation, saying that forces should be ready to go sometime in early summer and that there will be no identifiable D-Day as the operation ramps up.

Pakistan Spy Agency Bombed

March 8, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A Pakistani state security spy agency was targeted by a suicide bomber today. Casualties are believed to be heavy, with dead so far numbering over a dozen.

The Special Investigation Agency [SIA] building located in Lahore was demolished in the blast.

It has been conjectured [see, http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7018036124] that the SIA was chosen because of its counter terror activities in Punjab as well as due to fallout over the arrest of Abu Yahya Mujahdeen al-Adam believed to be an American al-Qaeda operative who was originally misidentified as Adam Gadahn, the American al-Qaeda spokesman.

Heathrow Airport Terror Probe Expands

March 8, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A second series of arrests were made last night in an expanding terror probe centering on the British Airways facility at London's Heathrow airport.

The three suspects have not yet been identified but news reports [see for example, http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2877333/British-Airways-staff-in-second-terror-arrest.html] state that they allegedly were engaged in a fundraising plot to possibly bring down a airliner.

The UK has been on severely heightened terror alert since the Christmas day attempted U.S. bombing by London resident Umar Abdulmutallab.

March 8, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Adam Gadahn [aka Adam Pearlman, Azzam the American, Adam Yahiye Gadahn] the U.S. born, high-level al-Qaeda spokesman was apparently not the suspect arrested in Karachi Pakistan a few days ago.

Though initial reports so identified him, Pakistani officials now claim that the man they apprehended is Yahya Mujahideen Adam who is also thought to be an American al-Qaeda sympathizer, but from Pennsylvania rather than Gadahn's home state of California.

Gadahn, a Muslim convert, was indicted in 2006 for treason - aiding al-Qaeda - and is on the FBI's most wanted list.

California Legislative Update - Health and Education

By CAMILLE GIGLIO

March 4, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Since the beginning of the second half of the 2009-2010 term we have been following over 100 bills dealing in various aspects of education and health for their effects on the right to life and family privacy rights as well as other public policy issues.

As of today many of those bills have failed or been held in committee. Two have been signed by the Governor. Today I present you with 17 bills affecting education and family. Please pass this information on to others; your pastors, educator friends, clubs. Above all please notify your elected representatives of your position on these bills.

Everyone has a right to submit their position on a bill, even non-profit, tax deductible organizations. This is public policy not campaigning.

We take a moment to recap our concerns over education bills and family primacy and privacy.

The following is a very brief and simple explanation of developments in education.

The US Department of Education was formed in 1965 out of the bowels of the then Health and Human Services Administration. The current Obama appointed Director is Arne Duncan who stated, upon his appointment that: :Education is the Civil Rights issue of our generation," and, further that: "education is an economic imperative."

Creation of this cabinet level office has always been viewed as a federal power grab of what was traditionally local educational programs and standards. Part of the State's Rights segment of the Constitution. View the website for the US Department of Education to see the 27 committees and offices within this monster Department. http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/or/index.html

In 1972, a very powerful piece of legislation was passed entitled Elementary and Secondary Education Act - ESEA. This Act has been centrally figured in bringing sex education into the schools. It also brought federal funding to state and local schools with the resulting establishment of expanding federal rules regarding priorities in education.

In the late 1980's under the George H.W. Bush Presidency a program of America 2000 was created along with an education agenda to bring us into the 21st Century. Under Clinton and with the assistance of Sen. Ted Kennedy, America 2000 morphed into Goals 2000 which in 2002 was renamed No Child Left Behind - NCLB. The ESEA/NCLB is due for re-authorization in the near future.

Little did anyone realize that this signaled a broad change in the purpose of education establishing partnerships between education and labor to produce pre-determined outcomes for students. It became known as Outcome based education.

Parents became wise to what was happening with OBE and so under George Bush,2, the name was changed to Workforce Development. Thus has begun for America, the greatest transformation in educational goals in partnership with labor. Rep. George Miller, (D-Martinez) is Chairman of the House Education and Labor committee.

One woman, Charlotte Iserbyt, a former department of education employee set about verifying all these changes referring to it as the "Dumbing Down of America."

The driving force behind this proposed transformation of education was, during the Clinton Administration, Marc Tucker, Director of the National Center for Education and the Economy - NCEE. He wrote a report to Hillary Clinton setting down the guidelines on the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce - Tough Choices or Tough Times.

The final product or mission of education is now to produce shovel ready students to match the shovel ready jobs that Obama is pledging. This is the purpose of the Race to The Top education funding legislation. If states and school districts apply for the RTTT federal stimulus package funding,(which several are now refusing to do) they are also agreeing to transform their educational system into one that focuses on preparing students for jobs,, jobs that these Workforce Development Boards, established in every county in California, are now planning. This further removes any local control from education. It further sees the parents role in all this as little more than a partner in encouraging the child's workforce training potential which has been pre-determined by all the longitudinal data analysis and collection software now being developed. And, finally, this is the meaning of a seamless education, or life-long education requiring pre-K thru junior college continual reinforcement of the goals set for each student.

The role of parents is being diminished, the value of our children is being determined by their ability to promote the United States' global achievements, special interest groups including Planned Parenthood are being given privileges to access our children in the schools for the self interests of these organizations. These are the fruits of the loss of respect for the right to life of every individual. When and if we support these objectives of education and labor and health elitists, we reinforce their belief that people are expendable. Recall what was supposedly presented by the apostles in the bible: if a person doesn't work he doesn't eat? Well, now, if a person is not useful, from birth, to society, he/she has no God given right to existence.

Here is a list of bills needing letters of opposition. Letters. postal cards or emails are requested to be sent either to the legislator or certain committees. Address is The Hon.___, C/o State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814. Email addresses can be found at www.leginfo.ca.gov. Bills can also be read in full on that site.

AB 35, Warren Furutani, (D-Fresno) Education: Workforce Development - declares the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to develop a strategic plan in the education system for workforce preparation and career technical education. Requires the State Postsecondary Education Commission to develop a strategic plan for connecting education and workforce development in the state.Current Status. Has passed the Assembly, waiting in Senate Rules for assignment to a committee.

AB 465, Joe Coto, (D-San Jose) Schools: Parent Involvement - encourages school districts to review and contract with nonprofit community-based organizations that have a proven track record and can demonstrate their success in educating parents and building direct collaboration with school districts, administrators and educations, and would be required to demonstrate and provide a culturally and linguistically competent parent involvement program. Encourages a low-performing district to submit a report showing efforts to promote parent engagement and the outcomes.Current Status: Passed the Assembly, awaiting a committee assignment in the Senate.

SB 436, Leland Yee, (D-San Francisco) Charter Schools: Freedom of Speech and of the Press - to allow charter school students the right to express their opinions in the school newsletter or bulletin boards and also to protect the school personnel from any law suits or reprimands for allowing this unsupervised freedom of speech and press.Current Status: passed the Senate, awaiting hearing in Assembly Judiciary Committee.

SB 1E, Darrell Steinberg, (D-Sacto) Public Schools: Race To The Top - authorizes certain agencies to enter into agreements in order to facilitate the implementation of a longitudinal education data system. Establishes the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Career Technical Education Educator Credentialing Program. Provides for teacher evaluations, certain requirements for low-achieving schools, revised academic content standards, a plan to secure federal Race to the Top funds, and the sharing of certain wage data with the Department of Education and other entities.Current Status: the Governor signed this bill on 1-7-2010. This was a mandate of the federal RTTT in order for a state to show compliance with the federal RTTT application for funding.

SB 2e, Joe Simitian, (D-Palo Alto) Pupil Data. Signed by the Governor 1-7-2010 - authorizes the Department of Education to conduct pupil data management on behalf of local educational agencies. Authorizes the local agencies to access specified data via the Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System and to share specified data via the system. Requires the establishment of an education data team to respond to all requests for pupil data. Authorizes the release of data to a nonprofit scientific research entity. Establishes a child care and development program reporting process.

SB 4e, Gloria Romero, (D-LA) Public Schools: Race to the Top. Signed by Governor 1-7-2010 - establishes the Open Enrollment Act to enable pupils residing in the state to attend public schools in school districts other than their school district of residence under certain conditions. Relates to implementation of the federal Race to the Top program. Require a local educational agency to implement certain reforms for schools which are subject to corrective action and continue to fail to make adequate yearly progress.[note: This is especially worrisome because of the implication for sending students away from home and across school district borders.]

March 3, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Team Obama was hit hard this afternoon by a major revelation by Fox News [see, http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/03/exclusive-unknown-doj-lawyers-identified] which has determined the identity of 7 of the attorneys currently working for DOJ who either represented accused terrorists, filed amicus briefs on their behalf or worked for firms who represented these clients, usually pro-bono.

Tony West - Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Division

Eric Columbus - Sr. Counsel, Office of the Deputy Attorney General.

Previously outed include:

Neal Katyal - Principal Deputy Solicitor General

Jennifer Daskal - National Security Division Attorney

The stonewalling DOJ has admitted the information is correct, but refuses to identify anyone else in the department who is linked to terrorist defense and refuses to say whether or not any of the above individuals are currently working on matters which might be a conflict of interest.

As we have noted in numerous pieces [see for example, https://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=wolftrial2.2.10%2Ehtm] Representative Frank Wolf [R-VA] and Senator Chuck Grassley [R-IA] have led a lonesome effort to reveal the extent of the Obama administration's malfeasance regarding national security. It is especially instructive that Holder et al., were still resisting both houses of Congress' requests for information when Fox News broke the story.

Here is DOJ spokesman Miller's statement on the matter, attacking those who are simply demanding that team Obama come clean and reveal the full extent of its hiring of what amounts to the terrorist bar for important Department of Justice positions.

"On February 18, the Department sent a letter to Senators about political appointees who were involved in detainee-related litigation before joining the Department. As the letter stated, Department attorneys are subject to ethics and disclosure rules as required under both Department guidelines and the administration's own ethics rules, which are the strongest in history.

In the time since we sent that letter, politics has overtaken facts and reality. Each of the nine people referenced in the letter filed legal briefs that are available by using something as simple as Google. The names the Department is being asked to disclose are already in the public record, and can be easily found by anyone.

We will not participate in an attempt to drag people's names through the mud for political purposes. One of the hallmarks of our nation's legal system is that attorneys provide faithful representation to all sorts of clients. As John Roberts said at his confirmation hearings, it is wrong to identify lawyers with the client or the views the lawyer advances for the client, and our history is replete with such examples, from John Adams representing British soldiers to Department of Defense JAG lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees. Department of Justice attorneys work around the clock to keep this country safe, and it is offensive that their patriotism is being questioned, just as it was offensive when people questioned the patriotism of JAG lawyers representing detainees or the Supreme Court Justices who, by majority votes, ruled in favor of detainees in cases during the previous administration."

California Legislative Update - Health and Education

By CAMILLE GIGLIO

March 4, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Since the beginning of the second half of the 2009-2010 term we have been following over 100 bills dealing in various aspects of education and health for their effects on the right to life and family privacy rights as well as other public policy issues.

As of today many of those bills have failed or been held in committee. Two have been signed by the Governor. Today I present you with 17 bills affecting education and family. Please pass this information on to others; your pastors, educator friends, clubs. Above all please notify your elected representatives of your position on these bills.

Everyone has a right to submit their position on a bill, even non-profit, tax deductible organizations. This is public policy not campaigning.

We take a moment to recap our concerns over education bills and family primacy and privacy.

The following is a very brief and simple explanation of developments in education.

The US Department of Education was formed in 1965 out of the bowels of the then Health and Human Services Administration. The current Obama appointed Director is Arne Duncan who stated, upon his appointment that: :Education is the Civil Rights issue of our generation," and, further that: "education is an economic imperative."

Creation of this cabinet level office has always been viewed as a federal power grab of what was traditionally local educational programs and standards. Part of the State's Rights segment of the Constitution. View the website for the US Department of Education to see the 27 committees and offices within this monster Department. http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/or/index.html

In 1972, a very powerful piece of legislation was passed entitled Elementary and Secondary Education Act - ESEA. This Act has been centrally figured in bringing sex education into the schools. It also brought federal funding to state and local schools with the resulting establishment of expanding federal rules regarding priorities in education.

In the late 1980's under the George H.W. Bush Presidency a program of America 2000 was created along with an education agenda to bring us into the 21st Century. Under Clinton and with the assistance of Sen. Ted Kennedy, America 2000 morphed into Goals 2000 which in 2002 was renamed No Child Left Behind - NCLB. The ESEA/NCLB is due for re-authorization in the near future.

Little did anyone realize that this signaled a broad change in the purpose of education establishing partnerships between education and labor to produce pre-determined outcomes for students. It became known as Outcome based education.

Parents became wise to what was happening with OBE and so under George Bush,2, the name was changed to Workforce Development. Thus has begun for America, the greatest transformation in educational goals in partnership with labor. Rep. George Miller, (D-Martinez) is Chairman of the House Education and Labor committee.

One woman, Charlotte Iserbyt, a former department of education employee set about verifying all these changes referring to it as the "Dumbing Down of America."

The driving force behind this proposed transformation of education was, during the Clinton Administration, Marc Tucker, Director of the National Center for Education and the Economy - NCEE. He wrote a report to Hillary Clinton setting down the guidelines on the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce - Tough Choices or Tough Times.

The final product or mission of education is now to produce shovel ready students to match the shovel ready jobs that Obama is pledging. This is the purpose of the Race to The Top education funding legislation. If states and school districts apply for the RTTT federal stimulus package funding,(which several are now refusing to do) they are also agreeing to transform their educational system into one that focuses on preparing students for jobs,, jobs that these Workforce Development Boards, established in every county in California, are now planning. This further removes any local control from education. It further sees the parents role in all this as little more than a partner in encouraging the child's workforce training potential which has been pre-determined by all the longitudinal data analysis and collection software now being developed. And, finally, this is the meaning of a seamless education, or life-long education requiring pre-K thru junior college continual reinforcement of the goals set for each student.

The role of parents is being diminished, the value of our children is being determined by their ability to promote the United States' global achievements, special interest groups including Planned Parenthood are being given privileges to access our children in the schools for the self interests of these organizations. These are the fruits of the loss of respect for the right to life of every individual. When and if we support these objectives of education and labor and health elitists, we reinforce their belief that people are expendable. Recall what was supposedly presented by the apostles in the bible: if a person doesn't work he doesn't eat? Well, now, if a person is not useful, from birth, to society, he/she has no God given right to existence.

Here is a list of bills needing letters of opposition. Letters. postal cards or emails are requested to be sent either to the legislator or certain committees. Address is The Hon.___, C/o State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814. Email addresses can be found at www.leginfo.ca.gov. Bills can also be read in full on that site.

AB 35, Warren Furutani, (D-Fresno) Education: Workforce Development - declares the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to develop a strategic plan in the education system for workforce preparation and career technical education. Requires the State Postsecondary Education Commission to develop a strategic plan for connecting education and workforce development in the state.Current Status. Has passed the Assembly, waiting in Senate Rules for assignment to a committee.

AB 465, Joe Coto, (D-San Jose) Schools: Parent Involvement - encourages school districts to review and contract with nonprofit community-based organizations that have a proven track record and can demonstrate their success in educating parents and building direct collaboration with school districts, administrators and educations, and would be required to demonstrate and provide a culturally and linguistically competent parent involvement program. Encourages a low-performing district to submit a report showing efforts to promote parent engagement and the outcomes.Current Status: Passed the Assembly, awaiting a committee assignment in the Senate.

SB 436, Leland Yee, (D-San Francisco) Charter Schools: Freedom of Speech and of the Press - to allow charter school students the right to express their opinions in the school newsletter or bulletin boards and also to protect the school personnel from any law suits or reprimands for allowing this unsupervised freedom of speech and press.Current Status: passed the Senate, awaiting hearing in Assembly Judiciary Committee.

SB 1E, Darrell Steinberg, (D-Sacto) Public Schools: Race To The Top - authorizes certain agencies to enter into agreements in order to facilitate the implementation of a longitudinal education data system. Establishes the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Career Technical Education Educator Credentialing Program. Provides for teacher evaluations, certain requirements for low-achieving schools, revised academic content standards, a plan to secure federal Race to the Top funds, and the sharing of certain wage data with the Department of Education and other entities.Current Status: the Governor signed this bill on 1-7-2010. This was a mandate of the federal RTTT in order for a state to show compliance with the federal RTTT application for funding.

SB 2e, Joe Simitian, (D-Palo Alto) Pupil Data. Signed by the Governor 1-7-2010 - authorizes the Department of Education to conduct pupil data management on behalf of local educational agencies. Authorizes the local agencies to access specified data via the Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System and to share specified data via the system. Requires the establishment of an education data team to respond to all requests for pupil data. Authorizes the release of data to a nonprofit scientific research entity. Establishes a child care and development program reporting process.

SB 4e, Gloria Romero, (D-LA) Public Schools: Race to the Top. Signed by Governor 1-7-2010 - establishes the Open Enrollment Act to enable pupils residing in the state to attend public schools in school districts other than their school district of residence under certain conditions. Relates to implementation of the federal Race to the Top program. Require a local educational agency to implement certain reforms for schools which are subject to corrective action and continue to fail to make adequate yearly progress.[note: This is especially worrisome because of the implication for sending students away from home and across school district borders.]

Can Tahir ul-Qadri Help Reform Islam?

By WILLIAM MAYER

March 3, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In what might possibly be seen as a hopeful sign of incipient Islamic moderation, Tahir ul-Qadri a Pakistani born Sufi scholar today announced in London, a 600 page fatwa [religious finding] that terrorism in any form is inconsistent with the Muslim religion.

"I feel that the youth living in the Western world...since they don't go through the original Islamic sources they are being victimized and are being misguided on the concepts of Islam...you go on the Internet and you will find the extremist people and the terrorist people are running uncountable websites giving the wrong concepts of jihad wrong concepts of suicide bombing giving the fatwas in favor of suicide bombing, creating some exemptions for them and this is how they are being brainwashed..."

Such condemnations have taken place in the past, most conspicuously in the wake of the 9.11.01 attack in the U.S. and the 7.11.05 attack in London, unfortunately to little effect.

Some observers of these efforts have labeled them as having been crafted more for public consumption than anything else. Tahir ul-Qadri's declaration does appear to be a bit different however, if for no other reason than the sheer length of his exegesis.

In many ways the worth of such arguments depends on what weight imams give them, they being the ultimate determiners of appropriateness. In reality, no one aside from Islamic scholars and imams can legitimately determine to what extent ul-Qadri's reasoning is consistent with the large body of Islamic jurisprudence which already exists on this and related topics.

In Islam, the term for defining how Quranic texts are interpreted is ijtihad, an Arabic word based on the root jahada - to change, also the root word of the now omnipresent jihad. Since many believe that the religion is less amenable to diverging interpretations than either Christianity or Judaism a strong burden falls upon those bent on realignment or reformation.

Another complicating factor is that Tahir ul-Qadri is a Sufi, an extreme minority sect within Islam so again the bar will be raised in evaluating his arguments no matter how rigorous.

In a seminal 2007 debate with then London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Dr. Daniel Pipes argued that Islam had changed in the past, that certain "loopholes," were invented to get around arcane or unwieldy propositions, and that change was necessary for the religion to reasonably coexist in a modern secular world.

"...I would argue to you, ladies and gentlemen, it must be fought and must be defeated as in 1945 and 1991, [applause] as the German and the Soviet threats were defeated. Our goal must be, in this case, the emergence of Islam that is modern, moderate, democratic, humane, liberal, and good neighborly. And that it is respectful of women, homosexuals, atheists, whoever else. One that grants non-Muslims equal rights with Muslims."

The immediate response so far [from those whose ideology is most in need of reformation] to ul-Qadri's statement was not positive, with London based Azzam Tamimi a renown Islamic extremist who brushed off the scholar's efforts stating that despite having preached his interpretation for "many, many years...it's evident that an increasing number of people are resorting to suicide bombing..." [source, BBC interview, http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/03/100302_suicide_bombing_fatwa_nh_sl.shtml]

Demonstrative of his radicalization, in the same interview Tamimi would not condemn the practice of suicide bombing.

First Muslim College Might Well Become Hotbed of Radical Islam

March 1, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California was founded by Hamza Yusuf, Zaid Shakir and Hatem Bazian. The freshman class will consist of 25 students.

According to a report in Islam On Line [see, http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2010-02/24/02.shtml#ixzz0gTft8Pj9]

"Zaytuna College is in the rigorous process of seeking accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a process that will take a number of years and one that Imam Shakir hopes will be completed by the time the freshman class graduates...they have been able to achieve the goal of raising nearly $4 million needed for its temporary location at Berkeley. Now they face the challenge of raising upwards of $65 million for an endowment fund that will ensure a consistent monetary support and alleviate the need for constant fundraising."

All three founders have made extremist statements supportive of radical Islam.

At a 2004 rally in California Bazian, "ungrammatically declared to a crowd of protestors, "we're sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it's about time that we have an intifada in this country that change fundamentally the political dynamics in here. They're gonna say, 'some Palestinian being too radical' well, you haven't seen radicalism yet!" [source, http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=13384]

"I have offered a number of questions to ask of Muslims to determine whether they are radical or moderate. Hamza Yusuf Hanson, called by the Guardian "arguably the west's most influential Islamic scholar," announced at the just-ended convention of the Islamic Society of North America, "I took that test and I failed. And I want to say to all of you, I hope you fail that test too." There is no "test" involved but if Yusuf informs me that he failed it anyway, that's useful information because it identifies him as an extremist."

A 2009 World Net Daily article on Zaid Shakir titled CAIR Speaker To Muslims: OK To Attack Fort Bragg, reported that, "Radical Islamic cleric Zaid Shakir, a frequent guest speaker at CAIR events, tells his Muslim audiences: "Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad."

Also mentioned in the piece, "Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft. Islam doesn't permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people," Shakir once told a Muslim audience. However, "If you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that's something else." [source, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=115687]

As noted above, Zaytuna College is seeking accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges [WASC]. If this is allowed to take place, WASC could well be sanctioning the existence of America's first college level jihadi madrassa.